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Sermons. 
Which Have 
Won Souls 


SERMONS WHICH 
HAVE WON SOULS 


By 
Rev. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D. 


Pastor Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church 


Denver, Colorado 


Author of 
** Christ and His Friends,”’ “* Paul and His Friends,”’ ““ David and His 


Friends,” etc. 


FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 


To 
the Members of 
Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church 
of Denver, Colorado 
This Volume Is Gratefully and Affectionately 
Dedicated by the Author 


Na 


CONTENTS 


The Pastor as a Personal Soul Winner 
The Soul’s Quest at SVS i tee Vee 
The Royal Kinship of Service . . .. 
The Potter and His Marred Vessel ~ 
The Manifestation of Christ . ; 
The Christian Vision Translated into Life . 
God the Best Paymaster . . . . .. 
The Golden Age of the Soul “2. wm. . 
The Unshaken Pillars.) os Ws 
The Music of Life 


God’s Command That We Answer Our Own 
Prayers 


The Fag-Ends of the Tree of Life . te 
- The Limitations of the Dwarf 2. Lak Bs 
The Christian’s Hidden Sources of Delight. ; 
The Sounding-Line of Prayer 1 ee 
Christ the Supreme Object of Human Con- 
sideration eee ae ee 


PAGE 


_CONTENTS—Continued 
PAGE 
The Lordship of Christ . . . . » 5 s » #ee 


The Breathing Places of the Soul . . . . . 297 
The Sentinels of the Soul « . . ... ~~. S15 
The Divine Romance in Christian Character . 331 
Contact with God the Soul’s Supreme Necessity 347 
The Supremacy of Humility ae 
The Sanctuaries of Life §. . . . . je.) meee 
The Soul’s Master, Leader, and Restorer . . 397 


Fellowship with Christ in Temptation and 
Triumph 2 2 J) ee ee, 


The Throne of Love <)>. <« . <.\s jseenln 
The Indwelling Christ ~ ~.. 9... « =n 
The Christian’s Deliverancefrom Sin. . . . 461 
The Voice of the Good Shepherd . . .. . 475 


Introductory Chapter 
THE PASTOR 
AS A PERSONAL 
SOUL WINNER 


THE PASTOR AS A PERSONAL 
SOUL WINNER 


NY clear-headed pastor will agree with me that, 
however desirable the occasional revival with 
its winning of souls to Christ may be (and I hold it 
to be desirable in every church), it is still more im- 
portant that there be a steady evangelistic move- 
ment which secures the salvation of souls through 
the regular services of the church every week. It 
is this steady work which counts most for the 
power of the Christian church in the community. 
Now I do not believe there is so fearful a waste 
anywhere as in the average Christian church 
to-day, where the Gospel is preached and men and 
Women are awakened to conviction in their hearts 
and minds, have their consciences stirred as to their 
duty, and yet are not brought to intelligent de- 
cision and action concerning the truth of which 
they are convinced. 
The church is not a club existing for the culture 
and entertainment of its members only. The 
Christian church exists first to preach the Gospel to 


11 


12 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


sinners, to keep childhood in the way of truth, and 
to cultivate and develop Christian character; and 
its weakest point to-day is in the lack of the kind 
of personal following up of the Gospel preached in 
the church service that accomplishes the conver- 
sion of the people who hear. Of all men in the 
church the pastor has the best opportunity to do 
this work, and the pastor who is able to bring the 
largest number of other people into personal work 
of this character will be the most powerful and 
effective. The cultivation of this class of workers 
should be ever on his mind and heart. Every 
earnest worker of this type will mean the salva- 
tion of a great many souls every year. I was once 
able to win a young grocery clerk to Christ and to 
instil into his heart the desire to win some one else, 
and in the first six months after his conversion 
that young fellow, with only an average amount of 
intelligence and cultivation, and working all the 
time long hours, six days in the week, in a grocery 
store, was successful in bringing to the church 
twenty-five men whose conversion he secured and 
all of whom became members with him in the 
church. Many churches in that same city that 
year did not win as many men to Christ. 

But, after all, the laboring oar is in the hands of 
the pastor, and unless he uses it, not a great deal 


THE PASTOR AS A PERSONAL SOUL WINNER 13 


of that kind of work will be done in the average 
church. Of late years I have come to the conclu- 
sion in my own ministry that it is a mistake to ex- 
pect direct results in the salvation of souls from 
the Sunday evening service only. I have found 
that there are large numbers of men and women 
among the unconverted who only attend church on 
Sunday morning, and if they are to be reached 
they must be reached in the morning sermon. This 
has led me to the determination to so build my 
morning sermon that while it shall have in it truths 
that will develop Christian character and comfort 
those who are in trial, it will also never fail to 
have a message to the people who are without, and 
I seek to follow up the message by private conver- 
sation and appeal in their homes, or, where it is 
advisable, at their places of business, during the 
week. In order to do this I make the Sunday 
services yield me a large number of addresses of 
people who offer opportunities for such visitation. 
Every Sunday morning and every Sunday evening 
I am at the main entrance of the church when the 
doors are thrown open, half an hour before the 
service begins. I shake hands with the people as 
they come in. The first fifteen or twenty minutes, 
even in a very large congregation, the people 
gather rather slowly, and in a big city church, with 


14 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


an average congregation of from fourteen hundred 
to sixteen hundred people, there will be a large 
percentage of strangers during these early 
moments. I find out the names of these people, 
find out whether they are Christians, and if they 
have any church affiliation. If they are not Chris- 
tians, I get by tactful questioning as much insight 
as possible unto their mental attitude toward 
Christianity. I go up to the sermon with my hands 
full of memoranda of names and addresses. Often- 
times I have in this way made discoveries that have 
been very stimulating to me in the sermon which 
followed, and the fact that I have had the friendly 
talk at the door makes the sermon far more effect- 
ive to many people. 

At the close of the sermon I say to the people 
that I shall remain for a while at the altar of the 
church, and shall be very glad to shake hands with 
any who would like to meet me and grateful if 
strangers who come occasionally will wait long 
enough for me to meet them. This brings to me 
many people from those who have come in late, 
after the sermon opened. It also brings, nearly 
every Sunday, some people to whom the sermon 
has been a message from God, and who give me a 
glimpse into their hearts, and put me on the trail 
of a possible convert. Again I have my pencil and 


THE PASTOR AS A PERSONAL SOUL WINNER 15 


memorandum book and gather still more addresses. 
The same thing goes on in the evening, and all 
through the year, every Sunday, rain or shine, 
when I am at home with my church. 

Now on Monday morning I have this pile of ad- 
dresses. With some of them I have made definite 
engagements for a certain time of the day and for 
certain days in the week. For some people who 
are busy during the day I have made definite en- 
gagements for certain evenings, and sometimes 
Monday morning finds me with every evening in 
the week booked full of this class of engagements, 
with the exception of the evenings upon which I 
have regular church services. This gives me a 
chance to follow up the message of the sermon be- 
fore it has been forgotten, and ere its influence has 
been lost. The result is very remarkable. Scarcely 
a week has passed during the last two years that 
there have not been from one to a dozen who have 
been brought to a definite decision to seek Christ 
and to unite with his church through these per- 
sonal interviews in the week following the sermon. 
I bring all these people into a class and meet them 
one evening in the week to study the simple be- 
ginnings of Christian life and character. 

Many people are just waiting for some earnest 
Christian personality to lead them into the king- 


16 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


dom of God. In the great congregation they are 
held in bondage by their timidity and the lethargy 
of the situation; but the moment an earnest Chris- 
tian man comes personally to them they yield with 
gladness. There are many other people who go 
frequently to church and who are not far from 
the kingdom, but who are kept out of it by seem- 
ing difficulties that vanish away like morning mist 
when once brought up and clearly and intelligently 
discust. Many other people are held away from 
God by sins which never can be uncovered without 
that sort of personal magnetic fellowship which 
comes in the private interview with a man deter- 
mined to bring a soul to Christ. 

I shall never forget a dark lowering morning 
when I went up into the pulpit much deprest by 
the unusual gloom of the day. But when I looked 
out on the congregation I was immediately inter- 
ested in the striking-looking face of a man who had 
come in after I left the door. He was a stranger 
to me, but in the sermon which followed I was sure 
that he winced under the application of the truth 
to himself. I determined to get at him at the close 
of the service, but he slipped away too quickly 
for me. I found out a little later in the day that 
he was one of the wealthiest business men in the 
city, a man of reserved temperament, who lived in 


THE PASTOR AS A PERSONAL SOUL WINNER 17 


a great mansion in one of the most fashionable 
suburbs. I confess I was greatly disappointed to 
hear all this. As a matter of theory I believed that 
God was as interested in rich men as in poor ones, 
and that Jesus Christ was as able to save this man 
as he would be if he were some struggling lawyer 
or clerk; but as a matter of fact I had had a good 
deal more experience with the other class, and my 
optimism and enthusiasm as to my ability to follow 
up my message for the man’s help and comfort had 
received a great check. 

All that afternoon and night, again and again, 
that man’s face came back to me, and I was greatly 
worried as to what I ought to do. The result of it 
all was that Monday afternoon, in a pouring rain, 
I hired a closed carriage and drove three miles into 
the country suburb where stood the mansion of the 
man who had been to hear me preach the morning 
before. I never did anything more diffidently in 
my life. I fairly trembled as I went up the walk. 
I rang the bell in fear. 

A servant came and ushered me into the parlor. 
A little later the door opened at the far end of the 
room and through it came my stranger of yester- 
day. When he saw me a startled look went over his 
face. He came forward and took my hand in a 
firm long grasp as he said, ‘‘ This is a strange thing. 


18 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


I have been thinking of you ever since I heard you 
preach yesterday morning. I thought of driving 
in again last night, but I have not been well, and 
my wife feared for me to do it. To-day I have 
thought of going to see you, but the storm kept 
me back. How did you happen to come to see me 
through all this rain?’’ 

Then I just opened my heart to him and told him 
the whole story which I have told you—of how he 
had interested me during the sermon and how I 
had been worried about him and had prayed about 
him ever since; only in this case we were two men 
sitting close together with our eyes on each other’s 
faces and our hearts greatly moved. 

He told me that the sermon the day before had 
seemed to be God’s message to him, and that he 
felt greatly condemned to have so long neglected 
making an open surrender of himself to Christ. 

After we had talked a while, I asked him if I 
might pray with him, and he said it would be a 
great comfort to him and he would like his wife 
to be present. He went out and brought her in 
and introduced her, repeated to her something of 
the conversation, and then I prayed with them. 
The Holy Spirit was present in that room during 
that prayer. Our hearts were strangely warmed. 

When we arose from our knees I shall never for- 


oO ene 


THE PASTOR AS A PERSONAL SOUL WINNER 19 


get the face or words of my new friend. His cheeks 
were bathed in tears; his eyes shone with a new 
light; he grasped me by the hand and exclaimed, 
“**T thank you with all my heart. You are the first 
man in twenty-five years who has asked me about 
my soul or asked permission to pray in my house.’’ 

That prayer and conversation marked the be- 
ginning of a new Christian life in that household. 
I could relate many such incidents. 

The sermons in this volume are all Sunday 
morning sermons, selected from those preached 
during the last two years because of the fact that 
they have been peculiarly blest of God in arous- 
ing the consciences and awakening the hearts of 
men and women who through this personal follow- 
ing up have been won to Christ and to the church. 
Every one of these sermons has had that peculiar 
sanction of God that it has been the instrument of 
winning souls to Christ. I send forth this, as I 
have the many volumes which have preceded it, 
with the sincere and humble prayer that the bless- 
ing of God which has been on these sermons in their 
proclamation may abide with them on the printed 
page. To every winner of souls to whom they may 
bring inspiration I extend a brother’s faithful 
hand. Louis ALBERT BANKS. 

Denver, Col., January 10, 1908. 


T HE 
SOUL’S 
QUEST 


% Ss 


THE SOUL’S QUEST 


“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrec- 
tion, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made con- 
formable unto his death; if by any means I might attain 
unto the resurrection of the dead.”—Philippians, III: 10, 11. 


HE first and supreme thought which inspires 

Paul in writing this letter is evidently his 
determination to come into the closest possible in- 
timacy with Jesus Christ. He counts it the highest 
of all knowledge that he may know Jesus. He is 
willing to count all things but loss for the excel- 
lency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord. It 
was not to know about Jesus simply, or to under- 
stand the great doctrines taught by Christ, which 
was the supreme quest of Paul’s soul. All this was 
interesting to him, but there was something else of 
greater interest, and that was to know Christ as a 
personal friend and Savior. 


I 
Experience is always the truest test. It is by 
far the most satisfactory test to which anything 
with which we have to do may be put. A man who 


24 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS _ 


has traveled in a country, looked upon its cities, 
climbed its mountains, and crossed its rivers, knows 
a great deal more about it than a man who has only 
seen a map of it. A man who reads that honey is 
sweet has a very superficial knowledge of its char- 
acteristics compared with the man who has tasted 
it. You may tell a child that fire is hot, but such 
knowledge is not so convincing as a scorched finger. 
History tells us that the Gauls when they had 
once tasted the Italian grapes were determined to 
get into the country where they grew. Moses sent 
the spies into the promised land that they might 
bring the clusters of Canaan into the wilderness to 
convince Israel of the richness of the country. 
And so in religion, as in other matters, expe- 
rience enly can give perfect satisfaction. The su- 
preme quest of the soul of man is for personal ac- 
quaintance with Jesus. A man may know a great 
deal about the Bible—know it so well that he re- 
joices in its literature, is inspired by its splendid 
psalms, is exalted by its dreams of the triumph 
of goodness upon the earth, and may even know 
the story of Christ until, like a celebrated infidel, 
he gives to him the reverence of his tears—and yet 
have no satisfactory knowledge of Jesus. It is not 
knowing about Christ, but knowing Christ, that 
will give us inspiration and comfort and good cheer 


THE SOUL’S QUEST 25 


in all the struggles of life. We often see much of 
a man without knowing him. I once said to the 
wife of a man whom I had known a great while, 
“‘Your husband never seems to have the blues or to 
suffer from changeableness of mood.’’ ‘‘Ah,’’ she 
said, with a smile, ‘‘you do not know him as I do.’’ 
It made me think of what Christ said to Philip in 
one of the last conversations he had with his dis- 
ciples—‘‘ Have I been so long time with you, and 
yet hast thou not known me?’’ Many people have 
grown up in the Sunday-school and in the church, 
and have heard a thousand sermons about Jesus, 
and yet do not know him. I pray God that there 
may possess our hearts this supreme ambition 
which animated Paul to know Jesus. He is not 
hard to get acquainted with. He wears his heart 
on his sleeve. If with true purpose you are seek- 
ing to know him, to catch his spirit, to share his 
life, you will find him ready with joyous and in- 
spiring welcome to take you into the very secrets 
of his soul. Never was there so charming a per- 
sonality. It was once said of Garibaldi that he 
charmed all who got into his society. But that 
charm, which many a great man has had in small 
degree, is only like candle light to the noonday sun 
compared to the infinite charm in Jesus Christ. In 
him are love, sympathy, gentleness, heroism, power, 


26 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


forbearance, all at their perfection in a single per- 
sonality. To know Jesus, that is the supreme 
knowledge and the supreme gladness of human 
life. 


II 

We have also suggested in our theme the soul’s 
quest for power. In our text Paul says, ‘‘That I 
may know him, and the power of his resurrection.’’ 
I am sure that Paul meant here more than the 
resurrection of the body. From many of his utter- 
ances he makes it very clear to us that the resur- 
rection of the body, in which he thoroughly be- 
lieved, was to him a vivid and powerful illustra- 
tion of the resurrection of the soul and its redemp- 
tion from sin. In his letter to the Romans he says: 
‘*Reckon ye, . . . yourselves to be dead indeed 
unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ 
our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your 
mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts 
thereof.’’ And in his letter to the Colossians he 
says: ‘‘If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those 
things which are above, where Christ sitteth on 
the right hand of God. Set your affection on things 
above, not on things on the earth.’’ And again, 
Paul goes on to explain still more carefully what 
he means by declaring that the Christian hath 


THE SOUL’S QUEST 27 


‘Put off the old man with his deeds; and hath put 
on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge 
after the image of him that created him.”’ 

These and other strong utterances of Paul give 
us authority to believe that in his mind the power 
of Christ’s resurrection indicated in the strongest 
way the power to triumph over sin, to gain con- 
quest over the human heart, and to live victoriously 
the Christ life amid the temptations and the sins 
of earth. In Jesus Christ alone can we find the 
power that can give us this victory. Dr. Watkin- 
son, a popular English preacher now in this 
country, tells how he was recently reading a medi- 
eal book on ‘‘The Sterilization of the Hands’’—the 
importance of the medical man, the surgeon, having 
his hands clean for his operations. He tells us how 
he tried a great number of things to cleanse his 
hands, and in the end found it impossible. He 
came to the conclusion that there is no such thing 
as cleaning your hands; at least, they are surgically 
infective. The writer says that when he washed 
his hands in soap and water he found that they 
were more infected than they were before. The 
more he scrubbed the more the microbes multiplied. 
He gives reasons why this should be so, reasons 
that seem quite feasible. The more he scrubbed the 
more the microbes came to light. 


28 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Is not that exactly the case with the man who 
begins to deal with his sinful nature? What does 
Paul say? ‘‘When the law came, sin revived.”’ 
It was fomented, stirred up, came to light, asserted 
itself. When the law came, when it came home, 
irrationality, passion, self-will, were stirred up 
and came to light. ‘‘Sin revived, and I died.’’ 
Many people are living just there, with the painful 
consciousness of evil passions, of wicked affinities 
that appeal to them, and they have a gnawing, 
haunting consciousness of guilt that makes peace 
impossible. It is only the power of Christ’s resur- 
rection that can cleanse such a heart. In Isaiah 
we read of the wonderful times that are coming in 
this world when the kingdom of Jesus Christ shall 
come to full victory. He tells us that the wolf and 
the lamb, the leopard and kid, the lion and the ox, 
will all be brought into a marvelous harmony; the 
sucking child is to play on the hole of the asp, and 
the weaned child to put his hand on the cocka- 
trice’s den. That all seems very marvelous and 
very wonderful, but it is not so wonderful as when 
a sinful man by humility and prayer and self- 
surrender brings into his heart the resurrection 
power of Jesus Christ, and obtains the forgiveness 
of his sins, and finds his nature renewed in love 
and purity. 


THE SOUL’S QUEST 29 


It is not only in the Bible that we learn it, but 
the most modern science tells us that a man’s heart 
is by nature a dark forest, where wild beasts roam, 
and where they hiss and snarl and scream and bite. 
The scientists tell us that these beasts came out of 
the primeval forest in our ancestral days, and they 
are the survivals of the animality of our origin. 
We do not need to quarrel with the scientists. One 
thing we are sure of when we look into the human 
heart, and that is that the wild beasts are there— 
asp, cockatrice, wolf, leopard—all the wild passions 
are there; but, thank God, Jesus Christ has power 
to tame them, to take the drunkard and make him 
sober living, to take the sinner most wretched and 
tyrannized over and make him as peaceful and lov- 
ing as the man out of whom he east devils in 
Gadara. There is power in Jesus to soften and 
strengthen and harmonize in the human heart until 
what was a den of wild beasts becomes a garden 
of the Christian graces. 

It is not only for our own salvation that this 
resurrection power of Jesus Christ should be 
sought after by us, but that with it bestowed upon 
us we may work the will of God in our own day 
and time. If we shall be worthy of this power it 
will be because we surrender ourselves completely 
to him and willingly give ourselves to do his work. 


30 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Some one sings who has known this experience: 


My hands were filled with many things, 

Which I did precious hold 

As any treasure of a king’s, 

Silver, or gems, or gold. 

The Master came and touched my hands, 
The scars were on his own. 

And at his feet my treasures sweet 

Fell shattered one by one; 

“T must have empty hands,” said he, 

“Wherewith to work my works through thee.” 


My hands were stained with marks of toil, 

Defiled with dust of earth, 

And I my work did ofttimes soil, 

And render little worth— 

The Master came and touched my hands, 
And crimson were his own. 

And when amazed, on mine I gazed, 

Lo! every stain was gone. 

“TI must have cleansed hands,” said he, 

“Wherewith to work my works through thee.” 


My hands were growing feverish, 

And cumbered with much care, 

Trembling with haste and eagerness, 

Nor folded oft in prayer. 

The Master came and touched my hands, 
‘ With healing in his own, 

And calm and still to do his will 

They grew, the fever gone. 

“T must have quiet hands,” said he, 
“Wherewith to work my works through thee.” 


My hands were strong in fancied strength, 
But not in power divine, 


THE SOUL’S QUEST 31 


And bold to take up tasks at length, 

That were not his, but mine. 

The Master came and touched my hands, 

And might was in his own. 

But mine, since then, have powerless been, 
Save his were laid thereon, 
“And it is only thus,” said he, 

“That I can work my works through thee.” 


Ill 

We have also, very earnestly set forth, Paul’s 
ambition to share the fellowship of Christ’s suffer- 
ings. He does not put this first, he does not feel 
that the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings is the 
first thing that the soul must seek. In Paul’s writ- 
ings, everywhere, life and not death is the key-note. 
If ever a man was sane and healthy it was Paul. 
He is ambitious to know Christ, to become ac- 
quainted with him personally, and he is determined 
to attain the power of the risen Lord over sin; 
but then he longs to share with Jesus to the full the 
fellowship of his sufferings. A willingness to share 
suffering is a test of true friendship. Casual ac- 
quaintances do not feel it necessary to telegraph 
us or write us if they are ill or in trouble, but old 
friends with whom we have borne the burden and 
the heat of the day, sharing their joy and their 
power, do us honor when they call us to share with 
them in their sufferings. And we cannot know 


32 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Jesus so as to receive the richest blessings from him 
unless we know the fellowship of his sufferings. 
Dr. Jowett commenting on this phrase recently 
said that we are apt to regard the table at which 
our Lord sits as only laden with delicate and dainty 
luxuries. But upon that table there is another cup 
which is very much nearer to the Master’s hand. 
‘*Are ye able to drink of the cup that I drink of?’’ 
is Christ’s question. Our intimacy with the Lord 
can best be estimated by our familiarity with the 
contents of that bitter cup. Our fellowship with 
the Lord can best be measured, not by our capacity 
for joy, but by our capacity for suffering. It is 
when deep ecalleth unto deep that we enter into 
the mystery of the Savior’s cross. 

This fellowship of Christ’s sufferings will make 
us very sensitive to the approach of evil. It may 
be doubted if Jerusalem was as wicked a city as 
Denver, but the prevailing sin of the city hurt 
Jesus, and the closer we come into fellowship with 
Christ the more the sins of the city will hurt us, 
and the more we will share with Jesus in suffering 
over it, and that suffering will drive us to sacrifice 
in effort to stop the sin. Christians ought to be more 
sensitive and more easily shocked at the sins of the 
city than they are. See Christ when on one ocea- 
sion they come to him and tell him a filthy story. 


THE SOUL’S QUEST 33 


What does he do? He stoops down and writes on 
the ground. What is he doing? He is blushing— 
he is blushing. They tell him an impure story and 
he hides his head for shame. But I fear many in 
Christ’s chureh to-day can listen to such stories 
and not blush. Is it not true that we are often 
fascinated by iniquity? We take up our morning 
paper and follow its unclean track down column 
after column of print when we ought to burn the 
dirty sheet with consuming shame. Oh, disciples 
of Jesus Christ, the sin of Denver ought to make 
us smart. Does it? 

The fellowship of Christ’s sufferings must also 
involve the power to enter into the sorrows of the 
world. A servant girl came into her pastor’s study 
one day, and in the course of the talk said, ‘‘I only 
get out one evening in two weeks, so I cannot do 
much, but I will tell you what I do; an evening 
paper comes into our house, and I am allowed to 
look at it. I turn to the obituary column and to 
the news about the homeless and starving, and I 
pray over each name.’’ Was not that sharing the 
fellowship of his sufferings? What a strange pre- 
scription for trouble Jesus gave when he said: 
““Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden. . . . take my yoke upon you.’’ At first 
glance it seems a strange way to find rest to add 


34 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


one yoke to another. The secret of it is in the 
fellowship. In the doubling of the burden, the 
burden becomes light. When we add our grief to 
the grief of another, there is in the combined fire 
a third form, one like unto the Son of man. 

The biographer of Charles Lamb tells us that 
when those awful periods of mental darkness 
threatened Mary Lamb, she and her brother 
Charles would go out in the early morning or late 
at night, speechless and weeping, treading their 
desolate way in silence. They went together hand 
in hand and weeping. I do not care what Charles 
Lamb’s creed was; in his silent sympathy in those 
dread hours he was taking the awful goblet from 
the table of his Lord. He was sharing the fellow- 
ship of Christ’s sufferings. 

The great trouble with many of us is not that 
we are not sympathetic, but that we do not ex- 
press it in service. We are moved, but we do not 
move. We are stirred by gracious impulse, but 
we do not stir. The impulse does not take on a 
practical form. We ery out, ‘‘Lord, I will follow 
thee: I could do anything for thee; I will follow 
thee in a moment, suffer me first to go and bury,’’— 
‘‘Let the dead bury their dead and follow me,”’ 
is Christ’s word. Do we not need to hear that 
voice to-day? Follow Christ at once in service and 


THE SOUL’S QUEST 35 


sympathy, and in sharing the sufferings of your 
fellow men with him, before the fire of sympathy 
which has become kindled in your breast becomes 
dead. 

Dr. Jowett, from whom I have already quoted, 
truly says that one of the greatest hindrances to 
Christianity in our time is that while we share 
Christ’s fellowship to some extent we stop short 
of the blood-letting. And yet it is precisely at the 
point of blood-letting that our cause begins to win. 
When our work becomes costly, it begins to pay. 
Our life only becomes contagious when it becomes 
sacrificial. The curse of our time in Christian 
circles is that we are so comfortable. Good men 
and good women are willing to allow their pastor 
to stir them to generous emotions on a Sunday 
morning, but would count it beyond their power 
to come to a Sunday evening service, at the cost of 
an extra nap, that sinners might be converted and 
the lost sheep of Christ be brought home. It is 
the laziness, the self-indulgence, the lack of will- 
ingness, the lack of real desire to share the suffer- 
ings of Jesus Christ in saving sinners, that makes 
the church slow and stumbling in her course, when 
she should march forth like an army ‘‘with ban- 
ners.”’ Oh, for a year of men like John Knox, 
whose prayers a wicked queen feared more than an 


36 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


army of soldiers! Oh, for a year of those Pente- 
costal Christians who wrestled every man with his 
neighbor until he surrendered to Jesus! Oh, for 
a year of the early Methodists, whom stones could 
not make timid, whom poverty could not shame, 
who turned the world upside down by their fervor! 
Oh, for a year of you, men and women sitting in 
these pews, shaken out of your self-indulgence, 
aroused to such gratitude to Christ for your salva- 
tion that you will ery out with Paul, and vie with 
each other for an opportunity to share with Jesus 
Christ in sympathy, and self-sacrifice, and suffer- 
ing, that you may win the men and women of 
Denver to salvation! 


IV 

We have another suggestion, or rather more than 
a suggestion, for it is an essential part of the whole 
quest of Paul’s soul. That is, his determination to 
know the immortality of Jesus. It suggests to us 
the true quest of our souls after the immortal life. 
Paul says, ‘‘That I may know him, and the power 
of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffer- 
ings, being made conformable unto his death; if by 
any means I might attain unto the resurrection of 
the dead.’’ If we live with Christ here; if we 
know him in our own heart’s experience through 


THE SOUL’S QUEST 37 


prayer and song and blessed consciousness; if we 
receive from him the resurrection power so that 
we gain conquest over our own hearts, and in that 
power live just and true lives; if we share in the 
fellowship of his sufferings so that we are thrilled 
and exalted as day by day we touch elbows with 
him in a yoke-fellowship of service to help the 
world, then we shall share his immortality. We 
shall live and die without doubt concerning the 
eternal life. No traveler to the heavenly world 
has come back to tell us about it save Jesus only, 
but since he is my friend, and my Savior, and has 
honored me by calling me to share with him, I 
may have no doubt that when I take that last 
voyage into the mysteries of death I shall not only 
meet my Pilot face to face when I have crossed the 
bar, but I shall see a smile of welcome there, for I 
shall see him as he is, and I shall be satisfied, for 
I shall be like him. 

Some of you who hear me are still in throes of 
agonizing grief over the passing out from your 
earthly company of those dear to you as your own 
life. Your broken hearts are ready to exclaim 
with Byron when he declares it to be: ‘‘A fearful 
thing to see the human soul take wing.’’ But if 
we keep in close fellowship with Jesus we are never 
far away from our loved ones who sleep in him, 


38 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


and the promise of reunion becomes every day 
more real and comforting to us. The agonizing 
‘“good-by’’ is changed in our thought into the 
““vood-night’’ of eager expectation. In such a hope 
we are able to say to our departing loved ones: 


“Only good-night, beloved, not farewell, 
A little while and all His saints shall dwell 
In hallowed union indivisible, 

Good-night. 


“Until we meet before His throne, 
Clothed in the spotless robe He gives His own, 
Until we know as we are known, 

Good-night.” 


THE ROYAL 
KINSHIP 
OF SERVICE 


THE ROYAL KINSHIP OF 
SERVICE 


“They dwelt with the king for his work.”—I Chronicles 
BV 2) 23: 


ORK is the law of life, whether for king or 
for peasant. The nearer a man gets to the 
top the greater his responsibility and the more tax- 
ing his work. These men doubtless counted it high 
honor that they were engaged in the work of the 
king. That they might serve him the better they 
dwelt in the king’s household and were always near 
him. They were set apart entirely to his service. 
Christ is our king, if we have chosen him with 
whole-hearted acceptance. Christ never becomes 
any man’s king except through the loving choice 
of the heart. avis | 
“They tell us that once upon a time the old Repub- 
lican city of Florence in Italy found herself greatly 
indebted to one of her citizens. He had done Flor- 
ence a great service and so the Florentines came 
one day and said, ‘‘Ferrara, we owe to you every- 
thing, our lives, our liberty, our speech, and our 


41 


42 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


great city. Ferrara, we will make you king of the 
kingdom.”’ 

These people who boasted of their liberty were 
willing to put their necks in the bondage of slavery 
in token of gratitude to the man who had so sig- 
nally served them. 

Ferrara said, ‘‘No, men of Florence, I cannot be 
your king; but I will tell you of one who, if you let 
him, will be king. Men of Florence, make Jesus 
your king!’’ 

And so it stood written on the books of the city, 
for nine months, that Jesus was titular King of 
Florence. And if you go there to-day you may 
read over the door of the proud Palazzo Vecchio, 
the headquarters of the city, this legend, ‘‘ Jesus 
Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords.’’ 

But it would not do. They could, by no decree 
of their city, make Jesus Christ king. Men under- 
took it when Jesus was here in the flesh. They 
were determined to make him king by force, but 
you can never make Jesus Christ king by force, 
either over a nation, or a city, or a single indi- 
vidual. Neither can you do it alone by signing 
creeds or by any mere formal ceremony. The only 
way to make Christ king is by the willing offering 
of your love; by crowning him Lord over all in 
your heart through your affectionate devotion. 


THE ROYAL KINSHIP OF SERVICE 3 


If we have thus chosen Christ as our king or 
will now so choose him, we may find in our text a 


helpful theme. If we choose Christ as king it is )_ 


for service, and we should consecrate ourselves first 
of all to be the loyal servants of Christ. Nothing 
must interfere with that. 

The old German poet, Schiller, has a ballad which 
tells the story of the Count of Hapsburg. One day 
while hunting the antelope, and in full and wild 
swing of the chase, the Count heard the sound 
which told of the last sacrament being carried to 
the dying: 

“He heard in the distance a bell tinkling clear, 

And a priest with the host, he saw, soon drawing near.” 

As the priest passed along his way, the Count 
saw that a brook, swollen by the rains, barred his 
steps with its current. Dismounting from his 
horse the Count placed the priest with his sacred 
burden on the saddle, enabling him to ride in safety 
over the stream and take ‘‘provision for the way”’ 
to the dying man. 


“On the following morning, with grateful look, 
To the Count once again the charger he took;” 


but the Count refused to take back for common use 
what had borne a burden so holy, and devoted the 
horse as a gift to the service of God in the mon- 
astery. 


44 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


“‘God forbid that in chase or battle,’ then cried 
The Count in humility lowly, 
‘The steed I henceforth should dare to bestride, 
That hath borne my Creator so holy. 
And if as a guerdon he may not be thine, 
He devoted shall be to the service divine.’ ” 

So we should count ourselves sacred to the serv- 
ice of Jesus Christ. Anything that would dishonor 
him is out of character for us, since we belong to 
the King and hold ourselves responsible for his 


good name. 
I 


Service links men with kings. In the story of 
our text we find potters and gardeners and people 
who trimmed the hedge all associated with the 
king. They dwelt with him for his work. So 
Christian service links us with God and Christ. 
‘“We are workers together with God.’’ If we are 
associated with Christ in service, then we catch his 
spirit, and the things which most interest him 
become of most importance to us. John Morley in 
his life of Gladstone says that Gladstone did some 
things because he was a Christian which no rea- 
sonable man could have expected him to do. One 
of the things he speaks of in that way is this: 
When Gladstone was at Oxford, he, a young man 
of high-souled integrity, with others, entered into 


THE ROYAL KINSHIP OF SERVICE 45 


a covenant that all their life long, whatever their 
avocation or calling, they would personally do 
some Christian work; not merely patronize it, or 
support it, but throw their whole energy into some 
definite Christian work, as long as they lived. He 
and Canon Hope Scott, noting the scarcity of such 
workers, agreed that they would devote themselves 
to the salvation of fallen women. Mr. Morley says 
that one thing that greatly shocked him as a youth 
was that a man, speaking strongly against Mr. 
Gladstone, said: ‘‘You can see him any night, 
after the house has risen, in the Strand or Picca- 
dilly with these women.’’ Mr. Morley remarks 
that this kind of work got him into difficulty. ‘‘Of 
course,’’ Morley says, ‘‘it was very indiscreet and 
very unwise. Hverybody admits there was not a 
scrap of worldly wisdom in it; but then, what are 
people Christians for?’’ He leaves his question 
unanswered, but gives his readers the impression 
that he regards a man who professes to be a Chris- 
tian as a man who does something beyond what 
ordinary justice and ordinary prudence expect of 
him, and that a man’s religion is to go into his 
business, not simply making him a just and moral, 
but a holy man. The Christian’s business life must 
of necessity be mastered and controlled by Christ. 
The presence of the King must dominate his busi- 


46 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


ness as well as every other department of his life. 

The Rev. Samuel Chadwick relates the interest- 
ing story of a man who came to his family physi- 
cian one day not feeling very well. After a care- 
ful examination the doctor solemnly told him that 
he had a bad heart. He said, ‘‘At any time you 
may die suddenly, or you may live for years.”’ 
The doctor and his patient were good friends, 
Christian brethren, and tho at first the man was 
greatly shocked, he did not after the first sur- 
prize seriously trouble about it. He said, ‘‘ Well, 
shall I give up business?’’ The doctor said, ‘‘No, 
you would die the sooner probably for that; go on, 
but don’t hurry and don’t worry.’’ On his way 
home from the doctor’s office the man stopt at 
his place of business and called together the heads 
of the departments and told them where he had 
been and what the doctor had told him. ‘‘Now,’’ 
he said, ‘‘I shall come to business, but I can’t be 
everywhere; and I want you to understand that 
this business is to be run with the understanding 
and the expectation that Jesus Christ may come 
to the master at any minute, and when he comes I 
don’t want him to find anything in this firm we 
would not like him to see.”’ 

That man under the shadow of death had the 
right spirit of consecrated service. But, my 


THE ROYAL KINSHIP OF SERVIOE 47 


brother, do not wait until you get a bad heart, and 
a death warrant from your physician, before you 
hold yourself in strict accountability to carry on 
your business in harmony with the spirit of Christ. 

If we are thus associated with Jesus, the burdens 
we carry for our fellow men will be made tender 
and loving ministries which will not gall or chafe 
us. Some poet sings: 


“T met a slender, little maid, a rosy burden bearing; 

‘Is it not heavy, dear?’ I said, as past me she was hurrying. 

She looked at me with grave, sweet eyes, this fragile little 
mother. 

And answered, as in swift surprize, ‘Oh, no, sir; it’s my 
brother.’ 


“We larger children toil and fret to help the old world 
onward; 

Our eyes with tears are often wet, so slowly he moves 
sunward. 

Yet did we all the secret seek of this dear little mother, 

Unwearyingly we’d bear the weak, because he is our 
brother.” 


II 
Fellowship with Christ strengthens us for service, 
rescues us from selfishness, and gives us the broader 
horizon. Selfishness is the most fruitful cause of 
discouragement and discontent. Some one says 
that it is when a church member begins to brood on 
himself, and remembers how much he has done for 


48. SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


the church for which he never got credit, that he 
begins to feel badly treated, and to doubt the jus- 
tice of God as well as of men. It is as tho a man 
had been given a magnifying glass to study the 
grandeur and beauty of the sunset on a mountain 
peak, and he changes the focus, and turns the 
lenses upon his sore finger, and wastes his time in 
mawkish sentiment over a scratch which he sees 
magnified into a fearful wound. In such a ease a 
man’s little finger is bigger than the world to him. 
It seems of more importance to him that he should 
live and escape suffering than that God should be 
glorified. When a man’s life is the biggest thing 
in the world to him, he can neither be a good 
Christian, nor a good citizen, nor a good father, nor 
a humane man. The true remedy for this pitiful 
selfishness is fellowship with Jesus Christ in loyal 
service. We always have within our reach the key 
that will open the door into communion with him. 

On one occasion, near the end of the life of 
Queen Victoria, she visited Sheffield to open the 
gates of the Town Hall of that city. She was so 
feeble that it was thought best she should not move 
from her carriage; so hidden electric wires were 
fastened to a golden key fitting into the lock, 
which she could turn as she sat in her earriage. 
By an act of faith she turned the golden key, and 


THE ROYAL KINSHIP OF SERVICE 49 


as she did so, at some distance away, slowly, surely 
the gates of the Town Hall opened. We have a 
key like that which opens the door between us and 
Christ. We cannot see the wires which connect the 
golden key of prayer with Heaven’s gate, but a 
voice which we trust says to us, ‘‘Turn the key; 
turn the golden key.’’ ‘‘ Ask, and ye shall receive; 
seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be 
opened unto you’’; and the history of the centuries 
does not fail to prove that every one that asketh 
receiveth, and to every one that knocks it is opened, 
and every earnest seeker finds, unto the joy of sal- 
vation. It is this fellowship with Christ, this com- 
munion with him, and imitation of him, which is 
the secret of the noblest service for humanity the 
world has ever seen. St. Augustine says that the 
essence of religion is to imitate Him whom you 
worship. Not necessarily to understand Him, but 
to imitate Him. 

The most disagreeable and unpleasant tasks 


which duty thrusts upon us, if entered upon with © 


a sincere love for Christ and a desire to help on his 
kingdom and forward his cause, will be trans- 
figured and ere long become beautiful to us, and be 
to us a source of joy for their own sake. Do you 
remember the old myth of ‘‘Beauty and the 
Beast’’? Beauty was a good daughter and a brave 


Yv 


50 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WOW SOULS 
J 


woman. Her father lost his fortune, and she set 
herself to serve him. When he was captured by 
the Beast and forced to promise one of his daugh- 
ters as a ransom, Beauty at once offered herself as 
the sacrifice. In the palace of the Beast, sur- 
rounded by every luxury, but not knowing what 
fate awaited her, she never forgot her old father, 
dreaming of him nightly, and at last begged leave 
to go to see him and return. Altho she was 
persuaded to stay a week beyond her leave, she 
came back loyally to the palace of the Beast. The 
poor creature was half dead with grief for what 
he believed to be her loss, and the sight of his pain 
and his delight gave her courage to avow her recog- 
nition of his noble qualities, her love for him, and 
her resolve to be his wife in spite of his hideous 
exterior. Instantly the Beast was transformed 
into a handsome young prince, freed from an evil 
charm by the devotion of the brave woman, and 
Beauty and the prince came into their just inheri- 
tance of joy and peace. 

So, no doubt, some of you who hear me are 
confronted by duties which seem repulsive to you; 
but if in recognition of Christ’s great love for you, 
and of the debt of gratitude which you owe to him, 
you would give yourself to this hard service, the 
very duty which seems so ugly would be transfig- 


THE ROYAL KINSHIP OF SERVICE 51 


ured by your love and devotion, and would ere long 
become your greatest joy and satisfaction. 


IIT 


It is only by dwelling with the King and sharing 
his service that we may be sure that at the end we 
shall have light and peace. The men or the women 
who give themselves up to the mere worldly pleas- 
ures which appeal to the senses and minister to 
their gratification are preparing for an old age 
which will be utterly empty and miserable when 
once the senses have lost their capacity to be stimu- 
lated into action. The man who thinks he will 
have peace because he has laid by great stores of 
wealth has his answer in the Rich Fool of Christ’s 
gospel. He who gives himself to self-indulgence 
is hatching out a brood of scorpions that in the end 
will sting him with remorse. 

George Frederick Watts was not only a great 
painter, but a great Christian as well. In the Tate 
Gallery in London are gathered many of his paint- 
ings, one of which is ‘‘The Prophet Jonah De- 
nouneing the Sins of Nineveh.’’ He stands with 
outstretched hands, with every finger outspread to 
the utmost, face worn and haggard, hair matted 
and wild, eyes fiery and rolling, muscles tense and 


52 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


strained, mouth open and eloquent, as he denounces 
the wickedness of-the city. Behind him are three 
friezes illustrating drunkenness, gambling, and 
horse-racing, while on the floor there are money- 
bags and ugly figures crawling up to them. It is a 
representation not only of Jonah in Nineveh, but 
of George Watts in the Babylon of the modern 
city, denouncing the sins that with canker-like 
voracity are eating away the vitals of our city life. 
Watts regarded our excessive love of wealth and 
our indecent haste to get rich as a menace and a 
calamity. On one occasion a friend said to him 
that God owned all the wealth, and that the million- 
aires were his money-bags and stewards. ‘‘Then 
I wish,’’ said Watts, ‘‘that He would add to His 
other duties the appointment of an auditor.’’ But 
in his picture of Mammon he very clearly makes us 
to understand that the auditor has been appointed, 
and that he does his work with a tragic effective- 
ness. <A grosser figure than Mammon it is difficult 
to imagine. A huge animal face, a neck with 
creases and folds of sensuality, square jaws, thick 
lips, bleared eyes, one hand dandling with his 
money-bags, the other clutching by her hair a 
maiden who has possibly married him for money, 
or who has been induced to sell her womanhood 
by the temptations of his gold. With one of his 


THH ROYAL KINSHIP OF SERVICE 53 
/~ 


4 


huge clumsy feet he tramples upon one of the 
young men in his employment. Behind him are 
two grinning skeleton-heads, and behind a curtain 
in the distance are the fires of hell. ‘‘His riches 
are corrupted, his gold and silver are cankered, the 
rust of them shall be witness against him, and shall 
eat his flesh as it were fire.’’ There is no denuncia- 
tion in the Old Testament more terrible than that. 
No Hebrew prophet ever denounced sin with the 
vehemence with which he denounces wealth ill- 
gotten and ill-used. In the same way, by the 
Minotaur, he sets forth the lustful man, a human 
being transformed into the form of an animal, 
crushing a frail bird with one of his hateful claws 
in wanton cruelty. 

In these pictures the painter is true to life. Not 
only does the sinner, whether he be given over to 
drunkenness, or to greed, or to lust, or the mere 
giddy pursuit of indulgence, do infinite harm to 
others; but he ruins his own soul. There is no 
peace at eventime, there is no promised day-dawn 
of glory after life’s sunset for such a soul. 

Now the old eternal choice comes to every man 
and woman among us. At the bottom it is the 
choice between good and evil. It is the choice be- 
tween Christ and his service or the world and self- 
indulgenee. Which shall it be? We must choose. 


54 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


**Ye cannot serve God and Mammon!’’ In that 
same gallery to which I have referred, Watts has 
two other pictures which represent these two 
choices. One sets forth the young ruler who came 
to Jesus inquiringly, and who made the great re- 
fusal. Watts paints him as a fine, well-built man 
drest in a gorgeous robe, his fingers glistening 
with rings, in the act of turning away from Christ. 
He turns away his face from the light because he 
has great possessions. But as he does so he easts 
down his head in desperation, as much as to say, 
‘‘Now I have done it, I have lost my chance and 
wasted my life.’? Is any man or woman here 
tempted to such a choice to-day? Is any sin grip- 
ping your life with such a tiger-like clutch that it 
is causing you to turn your back on Christ, to 
your moral suicide? The other-ehoice is repre- 
sented by a picture called ‘‘ Aspirations.’’ It is the 
picture of a young soldier with bright hair and 
gleaming armor, facing the battle of life and look- 
ing across its plains. He hears the ringing eall of 
duty, and his eyes are earnest with the weight of a 
great responsibility as he clutches the staff of his 
banner and determines to face the fray and play 
the man. He is the embodiment of the painter’s 
great motto: ‘‘The utmost for the highest.’’ His 
face is toward the dawn. 


THE ROYAL KINSHIP OF SERVICE 55 


It is to this that I call you to-day. Young or old, 
you may take your stand beside the King, with 
your face toward the light, and in his fellowship 
tread the path that shall grow brighter and 
brighter unto the perfect day. Your whole career 
will be ennobled and transfigured if you thus dwell 
and toil with Christ. 


“Tf Christ be in the heart 
The wildest winter storm is full of solemn beauty. 
The midnight lightning flash but shows the path of duty: 
Each living creature tells some new and joyous story, 
The very trees and stones all catch a ray of glory, 
If Christ be in the heart.” 


‘ i 
\ 
” 


THE POTTER 
AND HIS 
MARRED VESSEL 


THE POTTER AND HIS MARRED 
VESSEL 


“The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, say- 
ing, Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I 
will cause thee to hear my words. Then I went down to 
the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought his work on the 
wheels. And when the vessel that he made of the clay 
was marred in the hands of the potter, he made it again 
another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. 
Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, O house 
of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter?”—Jeremiah 
XVIII: 1-6. 

HIS incident, as well as its background, is ex- 

ceedingly interesting and picturesque. Jere- 
miah was one of the most devoted of men. He gave 
himself unswervingly to the good of his people. 
One of the old Bible scholars, studying this picture, 
sees the prophet in his loose fiowing robes, walking 
slowly and softly out of the temple where he has 
been pleading with God for Israel, and follows him 
as he passes away through the narrow streets of 
Jerusalem toward the Eastern Gate. Then, select- 
ing his road, he wanders down the slopes into the 
Valley of Hinnom. The voice of God is in his ear. 
The Spirit is directing his steps. Listen! he is 


59 


60 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


reciting over the pathetic words of his great pre- 
decessor, with almost as much pathos as Isaiah him- 
self. ‘‘O that thou hadst hearkened to my com- 
mandments! Then had thy peace been as a river, 
and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.’’ 
The prophet had come forth from a night of sore 
travail of spirit. The deep thought of his soul was 
ever this, ‘‘How different might have been the 
course of Israel, and the flow of their,national life, 
if only God’s rule had been supreme.’’ He had 
chosen them to be a light to the Gentiles, but, alas! 
they were derkness. In their evil choice and deeds 
they had foiled the divine plan and frustrated the 
divine purpose. Here is a father who loves his boy 
dearly. He conceives a plan unto which to shape 
his life. The boy is the one object for which he 
lives; to carry out his ideal he saves his hard 
earnings and seeks to inspire the lad to its lofty 
attainment. But there is resistance, and the plan 
is abortive. Again the father tries to shape the 
boy’s life according to another plan, only to result 
in another failure. Still the father never despairs, 
he will try again and again, until upon some noble 
model he has shaped the career of his son. Now, 
while Jeremiah was wandering on, he was thinking 
something like that about Israel. Presently the 
prophet reaches the base of the Valley of Hinnom, 


THE POTTER AND HIS MARRED VESSEL  6\| 


and pauses in front of a potter’s bench. Here he 
stands and observes. He sees the potter take the 
clay that is on his bench, knead it until it is soft 
and pliable to the touch. Then he sees him put 
it on the wheel and shape it into a vessel; and as 
he watches it, it becomes marred in his hand. But, 
to the astonishment of the prophet, the potter does 
not throw it away, but patiently he shapes it again 
and remakes it into another vessel. What seems to 
have made the deepest impression on the mind of 
the prophet is not the fact that the clay was marred 
in the hand of the potter, but that when the vessel 
was spoiled there was no sign of anger upon the 
face of the potter, but he set to work to do the next 
best thing that could be done with the clay. 

Now, my friends, what God wants for nations 
he wants for individuals. As he deals with a 
people he deals with individual men and women. 
God is no respecter of persons. I am sure we may 
find in this picturesque and beautiful parable a 
revelation of the mind and heart of God toward 
each one of us. 

I 

I think we should have emphasized in our study, 
first of all, our individuality and our personal re- 
sponsibility. We are living in a time and under 
certain conditions which make it hard to keep alive 


62 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


a keen sense of individual responsibility. It is a 
day when men do business in companies. It is the 
age of syndicates, and corporations, and trusts, and 
multiplied stockholders in great enterprises. Men 
will do as a part of a corporation what they would 
shrink from doing as an individual. Men are 
likely to lose in the atmosphere of such a time as 
ours a keen consciousness of the fact that in the 
sight of God we are not directors or stockholders, 
or partners to be judged in a mass, but we are an 
individual man or woman, held personally account- 
able to our God. Dr. Selbie, the English preacher, 
well says that there is no truer word in modern 
literature than the couplet of Kipling’s, ‘‘The sins 
men do by two and two, they shall pay for one by 
one.”’ 

The clay lies in the hand of the potter to do 
with as he will; but Israel frustrated the grace of 
God. And the solemn reality faces us that in our 
freedom of will we too have the power to thwart 
God’s plans for us. Walt Whitman drew a picture 
of the cow in the field. He says: ‘‘Why am I not 
as the cow? It is not troubled with doubts and 
fears. It is not hopeless. It is not always whining 
about its sins, but seems content.’’ And he goes on 
to paint an idyllic picture of the happiness he 
would have if he were as a cow chewing the cud 


fain 


THE POTTER AND HIS MARRED VESSEL 63 


in the field. It does not take us very far to answer 
why we cannot be as the cows. We have in us that 
“Spark that disturbs our clod,’’ that divine some- 
thing which lifts us above the beasts of the field 
and makes us infinitely more precious than they. 
As Robert Browning says: ‘‘Irks care the cropful- 
bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?’’ The 
beasts do not worry over their sins because the 
spark of divinity has not been imparted to them. 
But man is made in the image and likeness of God, 
and has been taught to look up in the face of his 
Creator and say, ‘‘Our Father, who art in heaven.”’ 
So it becomes true that, as an earthly son may 
thwart the plan of his father, we may frustrate 
God’s plan for us, and thus thwart his infinite love 
and wisdom exercised in our behalf. 


II 

Let us recognize anew in pursuing our theme 
that sin always mars and hurts and degrades our 
personality. It mars our very selves. It is not 
merely a stain that can be easily washed off. It is 
a marring of the vessel of our personality. 

Stuart Holden tells how a friend of his, who 
was a collector of choice china, was once being 
shown through the works where most beautiful 
wares were made. As they passed along he saw a 
beautiful cup, and from his knowledge of the value 


64 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


of such things, he said to the one who was showing 
him around: ‘‘This must be a very expensive 
piece.’” The man looked at it and said: ‘‘ Well, 
I believe you could get this for half-a-crown, if you 
like.’’ ‘‘Why, surely it is worth more than that?’’ 
said the collector. ‘‘Ah,’’ was the reply, “‘it was 
intended to be worth a great deal more than that; 
it is one out of a very choice set. But there is a 
flaw in it, and it has not been passed by the one 
whose duty it is to overlook and see that every 
piece which goes out is perfect.’’ The gentleman 
looked at it and said: ‘‘I do not see any flaw.’’ 
“No, you do not; but our master does. And he 
dare not send it out. That thing would not hold 
hot water.’’ And so it was discarded and dis- 
credited. In such a manner it is that sin mars us. 
It may not be a sin easily discerned by the multi- 
tude. It may be a secret sin in the chambers of 
the imagination, nestling as yet in the secret pur- 
poses of the heart, hidden from the eye of the 
world; but if it is there, it mars the vessel of your 
personality and makes it impossible for God to use 
you for the very highest and noblest service for 
which you were planned. If we were wise, the 
deepest prayer of our souls would be for God to 
show us clearly the sin that keeps our personality 
from fitting into his noblest plans for us. 


THE POTTER AND HIS MARRED VESSEL 65 


There is no personality so splendid or brilliant 
as to be superior to this law. Some of the brightest 
stars of our human race have been dragged from 
the very gates of heaven down to the gates of hell 
by sin. As Dwight Hillis says: ‘‘There is no Eden 
that gifted men have not lost: There is no para- 
dise the sons of genius have not destroyed.’’ And 
he goes on to illustrate it by the story of Rembrandt, 
who was one of the supremely gifted painters. To- 
day, one of his portraits would bring a hundred 
thousand dollars in the market. But if you would 
understand how a man can mar his very self by 
sin, all you need to do is to study the two por- 
traits of Rembrandt painted by himself. In the 
first one he stands forth a gloriously handsome 
youth. The lamps of love burn in his eyes. His 
face shines like an alabaster vase with a lamp in 
it. The whole man exhales strength, and there is 
nothing for which he cannot hope. We know that 
he has genius to create, and the imagination to 
beautify the world. 

Now look at Rembrandt’s portrait of himself, 
painted only twenty years later. The artist de- 
termined to deny himself no pleasure, he sought 
out every delight, he became a sybarite, and one 
by one the torches of his soul went out. Having 
been untrue to himself, he lost faith in others, for 


66 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


the penalty of dishonesty and impurity is the belief 
that every one else is equally dishonest and im- 
pure. So in middle age we see the artist, shrunken, 
an old rag around his throat, weakness in his chin, 
the mark of the beast upon his brow, the eyes heavy 
and dull, without vision, for the lights have gone 
out. In his youth, Rembrandt lived for his ideals, 
his dreams of love and country, of beauty and God. 
Then he seems like some palace on a winter’s night 
when all the windows are ablaze with light, and 
laughter and music and perfumed beauty fill the 
halls, and happiness exhales like a cloud of incense 
toward God. Oh, that glorious palace of sight 
and sound, Man’s Soul! But Rembrandt, after sin 
has marred him, is to be compared to a mansion 
deserted by these angelic guests. The lights have 
gone out from his windows that once were full of 
rich glass; the halls are empty; the spider’s web 
is woven over the key-hole of a closed door; the 
weeds and thistles have grown up in the rocks; 
the steps are rotten, the rose garden is a tangle of 
thorns; all the foundations are noisome with mice 
and vermin, and things that creep and crawl. Now 
and then an old gibbering care-taker goes in and 
out. The noble mansion is in ruins, given over to 
darkness and decay. And the ruined mansion 
is the house of Man’s Soul. And yet every man 


THE POTTER AND HIS MARRED VESSEL 67 


or woman of us who is yielding place to sin, even 
in the secret places of the heart, is daring just 
such a marred and despoiled and ruined person- 
ality. 
III 
The hope of the sinner is all in this, that the 

marred vessel is still in the hand of the potter, who 
has not thrown it away, but with patient love is 
able and willing to remake it. Some one studying 
this picture of the potter and his work repainted it 
in poetic lines: 
“The Potter stooped—and took it in His hand, 

That vessel frail. 
He turned it round, and gazed with wistful eyes 
Upon its form, that told with silent words 

A hopeless tale. 
“The Potter sighed—with sad grieved heart He marked 

The shapeless thing— 
The gaping rents, the pattern spoiled and blurred, 
The useless mouth. ‘I meant thee,’ low He said, 

‘To serve a King.’ 
“The Potter wept—and while He held it close 

Within His hands, 
He whispered to the heart that vessel shrined, 
The broken heart within the broken life— 

‘Love all demands.’ 
“The Potter cried—‘Oh! foolish, foolish heart 

To fight ’gainst Me— 
I, even I—I cannot mend the life 


Thou thus hast marred, frustrating all My plans 
Thou couldst not see!’ 


68 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


“The Potter ceased. Then in the silence deep 
I heard His voice: 
‘To make thee, I must break—form thee again, 
*Tis pain for thee, how much more ’tis for Me! 
I have no choice.’ 


“The Potter turned—and broke the useless thing— 
(It was not sweet!) 

But from the shards a new form rose again, 

His fingers molded, wrought another plan 
For service meet. 


‘ “The Potter smiled—the vase He held was fair, 
It pleased Him well. 

Pure water could it hold for thirsty souls, 

And recommend it by its loveliness— 
Draw—not repel.” 


The secret of the most splendid and beautiful 
life for each one of us lies in our yielding submis- 
sively to that divine love which has power to mold 
us and fashion us into the best and holiest person- 
ality which God’s infinite wisdom sees is still pos- 
sible for us. It is not likely that the second vessel 
which the potter made under the eye of Jeremiah 
was as fine as the first, but it was the best that 
still could be done with the clay. It is not prob- 
able that even the omnipotence and omniscience of 
God can make of your life or mine the perfect 
vessel that once was possible, but let us not despair 
because of that. If we are still in the Potter’s 
hands, and yield ourselves to him, he will still fash- 
ion us into usefulness and beauty. In his loving 


THE POTTER AND HIS MARRED VESSEL 69 


hands is the secret of the most beautiful life for 
us. 
Wayland Hoyt tells the story of a young Jap- 
anese who came into a pastor’s study one morning 
with the abrupt question, ‘‘Can you tell me where 
I can find the Beautiful Life?’’ The puzzled pastor 
asked him if he had ever read the Bible. ‘‘ Yes, 
somewhat,’’ the young Japanese replied, ‘‘but I do 
not care about the Bible; we have Japanese books 
perhaps as good.’’ What he wanted to find was 
the ‘‘Beautiful Life.’’ The pastor asked, ‘‘ Have 
you ever seen the ‘Beautiful Life?’ ’’ 

Then the story came out. The young Japanese 
had come to this country to study in one of our 
great American universities, but his main longing 
was for a sight of the Life Beautiful. He thought 
he had seen it once, where he first boarded in San 
Francisco. The man illustrating it was not a 
scholar, as was the Japanese himself; he was an old 
man and a carpenter. But he seemed never to be 
thinking about himself, always of others; was per- 
petually doing service for others, and wore always 
the happiest smile upon his face, as tho his 
heart was held and shining in a strong peace. Since 
then he had been searching in other places for the 
Beautiful Life, but had only gotten glimpses of it. 
Could the minister tell him where he could find it? 


70 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


The minister read the Japanese student Paul’s 
Hymn of Love in the thirteenth chapter of First 
Corinthians. ‘‘Was that it?’’ the pastor asked. 
‘Something lke it,’’ the Japanese replied. Then 
the minister gave him a New Testament and 
charged him to study that. 

Months passed away. Just before sailing to his 
native country, whither he had been ealled to an 
important post in the government, the young Jap- 
anese scholar burst in again upon the minister. 
With his face aglow, he exclaimed: ‘‘I have found 
the Beautiful Life, I have found Jesus!’’ My dear 
friends, it is there also that we must find the Beau- 
tiful Life. It is in his hands we must lose our sins, 
and be reshaped into usefulness and beauty. 


IV 

In the conclusion of our study we are forced 
back to the terrifying thought that our salvation 
for this world, and for all worlds, is here and now 
in our own hands. God will not violate your will. 
His spirit will brood over the sinner’s heart. Christ 
will knock at the locked door of the soul. The 
gracious ministry of divine love will be offered. 
But it is for us to heed and answer the call. And it 
is a fearful truth that sin makes us dull of hearing. 
An English traveler tells how at Niagara Falls he 
descended into what is called the ‘‘Cave of the 


THE POTTER AND HIS MARRED VESSEL 71 


Winds,’’ where the great cataract comes sweeping 
all round about, and those who are the beholders 
are hidden, as it were, in a cleft of the rock. The 
noise is absolutely deafening. You cannot hear the 
voice of your companion unless he shouts at his 
loudest in your ear. This traveler spoke to the 
man who was guiding him, and who lives there all 
the time; and he said to him, ‘‘ What a deafening 
row you have to spend your life in!’’ The guide 
smiled, and said, ‘‘Bless you, sir, I never hear it.’’ 
‘‘What do you mean ?’’ said the traveler. ‘‘ Well,’’ 
he said, ‘‘I was like you when I first took the job. 
I thought I could not stand it because of the noise, 
but now I never hear it.’’? He had become familiar 
with the constant repetition, the ceaseless repetition 
of the sound, and it had become normal to him. 
And so there is a terrible danger of our getting 
into that condition with regard to the voice of God; 
there is fearful peril of the atrophy of our faculty 
of spiritual hearing. Oh, that God would arouse 
every one of us to sensitiveness to the sound of his 
voice. 

I am sure there must be some who listen to me to 
whom this might be—to whom this ought to be— 
an epoch-making hour. It is a message which may 
mean in the hands of God the recasting of your 
whole personality into new and glorious fashion 


72 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


under God’s love in Jesus Christ. I pray God you 
shall not miss it through lethargy. 

Joseph Medill, in his reminiscences of the great 
Lincoln and Douglas debate, says that one night 
he heard a great orator and a noble patriot who 
loved Douglas plead with him not to make the 
speech which was afterward his political ruin. 
Douglas would not be persuaded; but afterward, 
when Civil War flamed across the land, and Doug- 
las saw his great blunder, shame and grief over- 
whelmed him and he fell ill with his last sickness. 
In his fever his biographer says he heard Douglas 
whispering, ‘‘I missed it! I missed it! I missed it!’’ 
God save any man or woman here from that ery 
when the shadows gather at the last! 


THE MANI- 
FESTATION 
OF CHRIST 


THE MANIFESTATION OF 
CHRIST 


“T am the light of the world.”—John VIII: 12. 
“Ye are the light of the world.”.—Matthew V: 14. 
HRIST is the moral and spiritual luminary of 
the world. As the moon and the stars get their 
light from the sun and do all their shining with that . 
borrowed light, so we get our light from Christ. He 
is the ‘‘Sun of righteousness,’’ whose beams illumi- 
nate the whole moral universe. This declaration 
of Christ should shock into silence those who talk 
of Jesus as tho he were only a man, as we are. 
What other man in all history could have retained 
the respect of his fellows if he had made an utter- 
ance like this: ‘‘I am the light of the world.’’ 
Yet it seems natural and appropriate to us falling, 
as it does, from the lips of Jesus. 

There is in our theme also a glorious revelation 
of the nobility that is in us. The moon and the 
stars must have the power to receive and convey 
light, or the shining of the sun upon them would 
be worthless. Man must have in him some kinship 
to Christ, some divine capabilities, or the light 


75 


76 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


from the Son of God falling on him would not 
create him in turn the ‘‘Light of the world.’’ As 
Phillips Brooks said in commenting on this serip- 
ture, when the sun rose this morning it found the 
world here. It found the world in darkness, tor- 
pid and heavy and asleep; with powers all wrapt 
up in sluggishness; with life that was hardly bet- 
ter or more alive than death. The sun found this 
great sleeping world and woke it. It bade it be 
itself. It quickened every slow and sluggish fac- 
ulty. It called to the dull streams, and said, ‘‘Be 
quick ;’’ to the dull birds and bade them sing; to 
the dull fields and bade them grow; to the dull 
men and bade them talk and think and work. It 
flashed electric invitation to the whole mass of 
sleeping power which really was the world, and 
summoned it to action. It glorified, intensified, ful- 
filled the earth; so that with the sun’s work in- 
complete, with part of the earth illuminated and 
the rest lying in the darkness still, we can easily 
conceive of the dark region looking drowsily over 
to the region which is flooded with light, and say- 
ing, ‘‘There is the true earth! That is the real 
. planet. In light and not in darkness the earth 
truly is itself.’’ So when Christ rises on the soul 
he quickens it through and through, and sounds the 
bugle of its true life in its ears. He inspires it to 


THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST 77 


be its true self. When the light from Christ falls 
into a human heart, impulses which have seemed 
hopeless are inspired with courage and spring into 
mastery over the soul. 

This brings us to see that Christianity is not 
something foreign coming into our lives, but it is 
something divinely natural which comes to com- 
plete our lives and bring us to our true manhood 
and womanhood. ‘‘The fullest Christian expe- 
rience is simply the fullest life. To enter into it 
therefore is no wise strange. The wonder and the 
unnaturalness is that any child of God should live 
outside of this, and so in all his life should never 
be himself. And yet how clear the Bible is about 
it all! How clear Christ is! It is redemption and 
fulfilment which he comes to bring to man. Those 
are his words. There is a true humanity which is 
to be restored, and all those unattained possibilities 
are to be filled out. Let us see how all this is true 
in various applications. Apply it first to the stand- 
ards of character. We talk of Christian character 
as if it were some separate and special thing un- 
attempted, unsuggested, by the human soul until 
it became aware of Christ. The Christian graces 
are nothing but the natural virtues held up into 
the light of Christ. They are made of the same 
stuff; they are lifted along the same lines; but they 


78 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


have found their pinnacle. They have caught the 
illumination which their souls desire. Manliness 
has not been changed into godliness; it has fulfilled 
itself in godliness. As soon as we understand all 
this, then what a great clear thing salvation be- 
comes. Does this make smaller or less important 
that great power of God whereby the human life 
passes from the old’ condition to the new—the 
power of conversion? Certainly not! What task 
could be more worthy of the Father’s power and 
love than this assertion and fulfilment of his child? 
Great is the power of a life which knows that its 
highest experiences are its truest experiences, that 
it is most itself when it is at its best. For it each 
high achievement, each splendid vision, is a sign 
and token of the whole nature’s possibility. What 
a piece of the man was for that shining instant, 
it is the duty of the whole man to be always. When 
the hand has once touched the rock the heart can- 
not be satisfied until the whole frame has been 
drawn up out of the waves and stands firm on its 
two feet on the solid stone.’’ 


I 
Our theme suggests to us beyond doubt that it 
is the supreme duty of the Christian to manifest 
Christ to the world about him. It is not only that 
being lighted up we are to light the world, but that 


THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST 79 


being illuminated by the Lord Jesus we are to 
manifest the Christ who is the source of our light to 
those who are still in darkness. The great musician 
Gounod once said to a pupil: ‘‘ You will soon think 
and speak of the great masters as I did. When I 
was your age I used to speak only of myself; at 
twenty I said ‘I and Mozart,’ at thirty-five ‘Mozart 
and I.’ Now I am content to say ‘Mozart!’ ’’ It 
is like that with the sincere Christian who grows 
in the grace and service of his Lord. The first 
ery was: ‘‘What must I do to be saved?’’ And 
then if we attempted great things for God in the 
first flush of our enthusiastic joy we dwelt upon 
the “‘I,’’ but if we prest forward sincerely de- 
voted to Christ, his light ever shining upon us, we 
came to say like Paul: ‘‘ Nevertheless I live, yet not 
I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I 
now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son 
of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’’ 
And if we are pressing forward, still deeper 
humility will possess our souls, until the words of 
Paul will again find themselves on our lips: ‘‘I 
count not myself to have apprehended; but this 
one thing I do, forgetting those things which are 
behind, and reaching forth unto those things 
which are before, I press toward the mark for the 
prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”’ 


80 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


We come to realize more and more if we are faith- 
ful that the beginning and the end of our Christian 
life and Christian service must be in Christ. We 
must live in fellowship and in harmony with him 
if we are to manifest him. 

A Swedish Christian poet has recently voiced 
this in simple but spiritual lines: 


“Live for Jesus! All the gladness 
That may come from earthly things, 
Equals not one hour’s enjoyment 
Which his blessed service brings. 


“Live for Jesus! for thus only 
Does our life deserve the name! 

To thy heart, before all others, 
Jesus has a perfect claim. 


“Live for Jesus! round his banner 
Gather souls while time doth last; 

To his cross invite poor sinners, 
Soon the work-day will be past. 


“Thousands of such wanderers round thee 
After peace and comfort sigh; 

Tell them of the Friend who only 
Can their longings satisfy. 


“Tell them simply of salvation 
Thou thyself in him hast found; 
Of the grace and loving kindness 
Wherewith he thy life has crowned. 


“Live for Jesus! Life’s young springtide 
Give him, and thy summer’s prime; 

Live for him when fading autumn 
Speaks to thee of shortening time. 


THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST 81 


“Give thyself entirely to him; 
Thus he gave himself for thee, 
When he lived on earth despiséd, 
When he died on Calvary. 


“Give up all for him, well knowing 
Thus to lose is all to gain; 

Live for Jesus, till with Jesus 
Thou for ever rest and reign.” 


II 

Our theme makes very clear and unmistakable 
the great fact that the evangelistic element is to 
be dominant in Christianity. Every Christian is 
called to be a missionary and an evangelist. It is 
strange how far we get away from the old land- 
marks. How we see whole churches full of nice, 
high-motived people who live year after year with- 
out seeming to catch a glimpse of the supreme 
characteristic of Christianity. And yet there can 
be no mistaking it. Christ says, ‘‘I am the light 
of the world.’’ Then he turns to his disciples and 
says, ‘‘Ye are the light of the world.’’ We cannot 
make mistake. It is the purpose of Jesus Christ 
to shine through me, when I am illuminated, upon 
the man next to me, and I am traitor to that divine 
light unless I reflect itso truly that that man shall 
see Christ, and glorify Christ for the light he has 
had through me. 

This is a great message, and God grant that it 


| 


i 
i 
' 
t 


82 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


may shake us out of our sluggishness, and our 
lethargy, and awaken us to our duty. We are to 
show Christ to men, and win them to him—that is 
the mission to which every Christian is called. Are 
we doing it? Is it the supreme thing in our lives? 
If it is so you may be sure other people know it. 
Dr. John G. Paton, the great missionary, tells of 
John Sim, a dear little boy who was ill and near the 
end of his earthly life. His child heart was filled 
with joy at the thought that he was soon to see 
Jesus. His simple prattle, mingled with deep ques- 
tionings, arrested not only his young companions, 
but pierced the hearts of some careless sinners who 
heard him, and greatly refreshed the faith of Chris- 
tians. It was the very pathos of song incarnated 
to hear the weak quaver of his dying voice sing out, 


“T lay my sins on Jesus, 
The spotless Lamb of God.” 


Shortly before his death he said to his parents, 
“‘T am going soon to be with Jesus; but I some- . 
times fear that I may not see you there.’’ ‘‘Why 
so, my child?’’ said his weeping mother. ‘‘Be- 
cause,’’ he answered, ‘‘if you were set upon going 
to heaven and seeing Jesus there, you would pray 
about it, and sing about it; you would talk about 
Jesus to others and tell them of that happy meet- 
ing with him in glory. All this my dear Sabbath 


~ 


THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST 83 


school teacher taught me, and she will meet me 
there. Now, why did not you, my father and * 
mother, tell me all these things about Jesus, if ~ 
you are going to meet him too?’’ acne? 
If we are to reveal Christ to men the spirit of ~? 
his love must become dominant in us. That is the ~ 
one thing that nothing can withstand. Some of 
you remember the old fable of the winds, how they 
competed in blowing upon a man going up hill, to 
see which would make him take off his coat: The 
North and East winds each blew fiercely, and the 
West wind brought rain, but the man only buttoned 
his coat closer. Then the South wind blew with a 
gentle breeze, when he first unbuttoned his coat, 
and then took it off. Love is like that. If all hate 
and anger and selfishness is burned out of our 
hearts in the light of Christ’s nature, then we may 
manifest Jesus to others, and we will find some- 
thing in every man and woman, however barren 
their natures seem to be, that will answer back to 
it. Some of you have read Victor Hugo’s ‘‘ Notre 
Dame.”’ You will remember the dramatic chapter 
in which the brilliant writer describes the public 
flogging of the hideous dwarf who dwelt in the 
precincts of the great Cathedral. The half-witted 
creature raged like a wild beast, helpless in his 
bonds, while the wretched crowd roared and 


} 
. 


84 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


shouted with delight at his pain, and pelted him 
with missiles. The sufferer’s clerical brother put 
in an appearance for a moment, only to ride swiftly 
away again for fear he should be associated in 
some way with this poor victim of human justice. 
The sufferer had seen him, however, and the sight 
only added to his pain. He moaned for water, but 
the crowd only mocked him. Both the desolation 
and the mocking were exactly like that which 
Jesus endured on Calvary. »But could there be any- 
thing akin to Jesus in this misshapen and de- 
graded dwarf? Victor Hugo shows us that there 
was. A young girl pushed her way through the 
crowd, and with one indignant word to his tor- 
mentors held a flask of water to the lips of the suf- 
ferer. The miracle was effective in a moment. 
What the warden’s lash and the jeers of the mob 
could not do, this simple action did. Into the 
hideous face there came first a look of astonishment, 
then of understanding, and then a tear coursed 
slowly down the scarcely human cheek. The cup 
of cold water had found the divine possibility in 
the heart of the brute. 


_— There is something like that in one of our more 


recent creations of the novelist—one of the stories 
of Anthony Hope. It is the story of a miser, the 
story of a man who gradually lost his soul through 


THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST 85 


the accumulation of money. He had a great safe in 
his room. He was believed to be poor, because he 
lived so poorly ; but in that safe the gradually piled 
up documents that entitled him to property here, 
there, and everywhere, and only one man knew 
how rich a man he was. Then there came into his 
home and into his life a young girl with a perfectly 
unselfish and disinterested soul, who was willing to 
give away everything that she possest in order 
that she might help another, and bless another, and 
gradually this radiant, Christlike influence broke 
him down with shame, melted his heart, until at 
last he began to propose to himself a veritable 
crucifixion, that he too should begin to give for the 
sake of others, that he too should take to the life of 
the Cross in order that he might be saved from his 
body of death and know the meaning of that life 
which is life indeed. He had everything, humanly 
speaking, that men seek for most. All power was 
his, and yet he had missed the secret of life be- 
cause until love came into his very soul, and he 
saw the love of God and man, he did not realize 


what life means, and what life is given for. Then /\ 


only did he learn Browning’s truth that ‘‘Life is | 

our chance of learning love.’’ ~-—~d 
Christ’s love in your heart and mine cannot be 

long baffled in its influence on those about us. 


86 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


“Tn the long run all love is paid by love; 
Tho undervalued by the hosts of earth, 
The great eternal government above 
Keeps strict account, and will redeem its worth. 
Give thy love freely; do not count its cost; 
So beautiful a thing was never lost, 
In the long run.” 

We must not permit ourselves to fail to make 
the application of our theme personally to our own 
lives. This is the greatest thing that can pertain 
to us as Christians. Christianity is not a luxury, 
it is the water of life. The light of Christ does 
not shine into our hearts to create us into a sort of 
spiritual aristocracy, but to ennoble us, enlarge us, 
make us splendid and gracious and skilful and 
loving, so that we may lift men and women up into 
the same light and courage. And it is not only to 
the drunken and the brutal, the enslaved of sin in 
shameful ways, that we must manifest Christ; but 
to the many who are closer to us, and who are not 
far from the kingdom, who have been born and 
reared under such conditions that they have 
already seen through a glass darkly the glory of 
the Christ. If we only knew how many waiting souls 
there are in our own homes, in the places where 
we do business, among the people we meet socially, 
whom we could introduce to Christ with a single 
earnest consecrated effort, we would be amazed 


THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST 87 


at the white harvest all about us among which 
many are standing with folded hands. 

The daughter of the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes in 
her recent biography of her father tells the strik- 
ing story of the conversion of an Oxford Don, the 
head of one of the colleges. Mr. Hughes met him 
one day in the street and said, ‘‘Excuse me, but I 
am irresistibly led to ask you: ‘What do you think 
of Jesus Christ? Do you know him as your 
Savior?’’’ The Don paused a moment and then 
said, with evident emotion, ‘‘Thank you, Mr. 
Hughes, for asking me that question. Do you 
know, I have been waiting for twenty years for 
some one to ask me that question. Will you come 
into my rooms?’’ Mr. Hughes readily responded, 
and had the joy of showing the Don the old, old 
way of salvation. I am sure that there are a thou- 
sand Christians here this morning who in the aggre- 
gate are living in close touch and influence with 
a thousand other people who do not know Jesus 
Christ as their personal Savior; but who could be 
won to him to-morrow or to-day by a definite effort 
such as that. O my friends, you have no other op- 
portunity so great as this—to manifest Jesus Christ 
to another soul. Failing in that, you have made 
the great failure. Succeeding in that, whatever else 
happens, you have made the great success of life. 


THE CHRISTIAN 
VISION TRANS- 
LATED INTO LIFE 


THE CHRISTIAN VISION 
TRANSLATED INTO LIFE 


“Who art thou, Lord?”—Acts IX: 5. 
“Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”—Acts IX: 6. 


ISIONS are always given as a prelude to life. «— 
Indeed, the life is born out of the vision. Peter, 
y on the house top of Simon the tanner, has a great 
vision, and while he is perplexed and wondering 
about the new idea borne in upon his mind, and 
illustrated by the vision, a messenger comes, break- 
ing in rudely upon his meditations, in a manner 
which I do not doubt was exceedingly annoying to 
Peter, as his mind was rapt in the ecstasy of the 
vision, and told him that there were three men ¥ 
waiting for him at the door. These men waited 
to lead him away to the house of Cornelius where 
his great vision of human equality before God was 
to be emphasized in his preaching the first sermon 
to the Gentiles, and his recognition that the Gospel 
of Jesus Christ was to all men. The vision had 
- been given him to be translated into life. Visions 
are always given us for that purpose. God never 


91 


92 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


gives us visions simply to revel in. They are to 
exalt us, to instruct us, to inspire us so that on 
common days we may live by their power and 
their wisdom. The Bible records many illustra- 
tions of this great truth. Paul has a vision on the 
Mediterranean corn ship of an angel with gracious 
words and promises of divine sympathy and help. 
Translated into life it means the saving of all 
on board and the preaching of the Gospel to a new 
people. Paul has a vision at night of ‘‘A man of 
Macedonia’’ appealing for help, and that form 
seen in his vision leads him across land and sea to 
strange towns and cities, and plants the Gospel in 
many~new regions. But the first great vision 
granted to Paul was the one which transformed 
- him from Saul, the bigoted persecutor, into Paul, 
the humble self-sacrificing apostle. It was that 
day on the way to Damascus, when he was bent on 
the destruction of the Christians, whom he believed 
to be dangerous fanatics, that the heavenly light 
shone above him and his company, and as they all 
fell to the ground in dismay, the voice of Jesus 
Christ spoke to him, saying, ‘‘Saul, Saul, why perse- 
cutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against 
the pricks.’ Immediately Paul answered with the 
inquiry, ‘‘Who art thou, Lord?’’ And back came 
the answer, in tones that carried such convincing 


CHRISTIAN VISION TRANSLATEDINTO LIFE 9% 


weight that that keen-brained lawyer never doubted 
their truth, ‘‘I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.’’ 
Quick as a flash came back the answer of Paul with 
another inquiry: ‘‘Lord, what wilt thou have me 
to do?’’ Paul’s mind was remarkably logical. By 
intuition he saw the relations between vision and 
duty. He knew that after this vision life could 
never be what it was before. It must be some- 
thing entirely different. Having become convinced 
that Jesus was the Christ, he must now rise up 
into a new realm where Christ was Lord. And 
long years afterward, when Paul was getting to be 
“an_old ‘man and stood a prisoner, with handcuffs 
upon his wr his wrists, to plead his cause before King 
Agrippa, his supreme boa boast was s this, ‘ “Whereupon, 
i) O King Agrippa,_1_was_not_ disobedient unto the— 


“heavenly vision.’ 


Now in these cases of Paul and Peter we have ex- 
amples of the proper attitude toward the visions 
of Christ and of duty which come to all of us. Here 
is illustrated the right attitude of mind toward 
the visions which God gives us. Both Peter and 
Paul had been inclined to be narrow and bigoted 
and wrong-headed sort of men, but there was about 
each of them a certain genuine honesty of purpose 
to do right when they saw the right, that made it 
possible for them to get heavenly wisdom and 


uv 


e 


94 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


guidance from the visions of God. Each one of us 
has visions as truly as did these famous men. 


ae 


In sermon and in song, in sickness and in health, 
in book and in friend, in a score of ways God 
brings his visions of the Christ and his claims upon 
us and our duties because of him home to our 
hearts. If they are to exalt and ennoble us and 
make our lives glorious for good, it must be be- 
cause we receive them with open mind and integ- 
rity of purpose. As some poet sings, we need to 
throw open the door to the divine teaching. 


“Open the door of the soul; let in 

Strong, pure thoughts which shall banish sin. 

They will grow and bloom with a grace divine 

And their fruit shall be sweeter than that of the vine. 
Open the door! 


“Open the door to the heart; let in 
Sympathy sweet for stranger and kin, 
It will make the halls of the heart so fair 
That angels may enter unaware. 

Open the door!” 


I 


The supreme purpose for which God gives us 
visions of heavenly import is first of all the same, 
whether it be to Paul or to Peter or to you or to 
me, that we may know the will of God concerning 
us. God’s will is the best thing that can happen 


CHRISTIAN VISION TRANSLATEDINTO LIFE 95 


to -you or to me, and it is his purpose to make 
known to us his will when we are ready to give 
allegiance to it. When they led Saul away blind to 
Damascus, a devout Christian man came, that he 
might pray with him and instruct him, and that 
good man said to him, “‘The God of our fathers 
hath chosen thee, that thou shouldst know his will, 
and see that Just One, and shouldst hear the voice 
‘of his mouth.’’ From that day Paul sought to know 
the will of God. His restlessness was conquered. 
He could afford to be patient, for he was the ser- 
vant of the King, and was helping to forward the 
plans of the infinite God. My dear friends, that 
is the cure for your restlessness and mine. The 
burdens, the perplexities, and the sorrows of life 
that would otherwise overwhelm us, if we were 
fighting our own battle against the world, with 
all the handicap which we sometimes suffer, become 
insignificant and of very small account when we 
really remember that we are the servants of God, 
chosen to know his will and to do it, and leave the 
result with him. Life becomes sweet and splendid 
with such a faith. It is the touch of the Master 
that calms life’s fever and gives us a steady, abid- 
ing joy. 

I have just been reading a story of a Japanese 
soldier, who at the siege of Port Arthur, in the 


\ 


96 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Russo-Japanese_ War, lost both of his eyes by a 
cruel bullet. Again and again he begged his com- 
rades to kill him, but they would not. He was 
brought to one of the military hospitals in Tokyo 
to be cared for until able to return home. Here 
also he pleaded with the other soldiers to end his 
life, and as he began to recover his health he be- 
came more and more sad. One day he said: ‘‘ Well, 
I will go home and let my family see me just once, 
then no one can prevent my killing myself. No 
harm in putting an end to my own misery.”’ 

Now every few days a Christian missionary vis- 
ited this hospital, taking to the sick and wounded 
soldiers flowers, fragments of the printed Gospel, 
and Christian tracts, and teaching them about 
Jesus. Some of the officials of the hospital said to 
this good woman: ‘‘There is a man there who has 
lost his eyes and seems quite lonely. If you have 
time, we should like to have you visit him.’’ 

They did not tell her how he had wanted to die, 
and how he had threatened to kill himself. This 
missionary went to his bedside and talked to him 
several times. At first he did not take very much 
interest in anything she said, but gradually he be- 
came quite friendly. Finally she asked him if he 
would not like to learn to read, and he was sur- 
prized at such a question, for while he could read 


CHRISTIAN VISION TRANSLATEDINTOLIFE 97 


before going to battle, how could he ever do so 
again? But the missionary taught him to read 
the blind man’s Bible just as blind people in 
America are taught to read, and he became as happy 
as the blind man whom Jesus healed. Day by day 
he read the Bible, and became a very happy Chris- 
tian. The other soldiers would not believe that he 
could read, and tried to tease him, so he said: ‘‘ You 
may pick out any verse you please, and I will show 
you that I can read.’’ So they kept selecting, and 
to their astonishment he could read everything 
and enjoyed doing so, all the more because he 
wanted to teach the Bible to the other men. When 
this blind soldier was able to return home, one of 
his comrades who remembered his earlier despair 
said to him as he was leaving the hospital, ‘‘ Are 
you going to kill yourself after you have seen your 
family?’’ And with beaming face he replied, ‘‘ No, 
indeed! I am going home to teach my wife and 
children Christianity; I am glad that I was 
wounded, for now I am a Christian.’’ Like Saul, 
through his blindness this man had obtained his 
sight, and like him he was not disobedient unto the 
heavenly vision. 

And so there is no earthly limitation that can 
thwart our joy when we come to understand. that 
the will of God is the supreme protection as well-as 


“ 


98 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


the supreme joy of our lives. Loyalty to God’s 
will is the greatest safeguard of the soul in pro- 
tecting it from the assaults of evil. Two of the 
most prominent buildings in London are Bucking- 
ham Palace and the Hotel Cecil. Both of these are 
magnificent specimens of the builder’s art. Each 
is luxuriously furnished and decorated. But there 
is one great difference between these two buildings. 
The Hotel Cecil is open to all who are able to pay 
for accommodations. Rooms in it can be hired for 
lust, debauchery, or vice of any kind. The one 
thing necessary is to be able to pay the price. 
Not so with the Buckingham Palace. No amount 
of money could hire a single room in it. And why? 
It is the palace of the King. So it is with a human 
heart that is completely given over to do the will of 
God. When the devil taps softly or knocks loudly 
at the door for admission the reply is, ‘‘ No entrance 
here; this is the palace of the King.”’ 


II 
We have in the study of our theme this further 
suggestion, that when Christ is revealed to the 
heart of any man or woman it becomes the duty 
of the one who has seen the vision of the Savior to 
be forever after a witness to what-he has*seen;- The 
good man who brought sight again to Paul said to 


CHRISTIAN VISION TRANSLATEDINTO LIFE 99 


him, ‘‘For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of 


what thou hast seen and heard.’’ Paul’s life bears 
‘abundant evidence that he accepted that statement 
in the most literal way to be true, for wherever he 
went, to whatever audience he preached, whether 


it was a great crowd of common people in the )' 


street, or before kings or queens, he told the story 
of his conversion as the greatest thing he had to tell. 


He held himself above all else to be a witness to 
Christ and his power to forgive sins. And so every 


one of us who has had revealed to him the Lord 


Jesus as his personal Savior is to be a witness for 
Christ, and our lives and words and characters are © 


to be living testimony for him. God save us from 
being false witnesses. 
In the far East a ship hailing from a German 


port once drove ashore on the sands.of Java. When |... > . 


the master of the ship was called”to an account 
for the disaster, he gave as an excuse that the 
beacon on shore had settled several feet in the sand, 
so that it did not register the height from the sea 
which was ascribed to it in the hydrographic books. 
Mistaking the elevation of the light, the skipper 
substituted its indications for those of another 
light, and went ashore. The beacon, not the skipper, 
was at fault. Brothers, we are set as beacons in 
the world. But if our light is shed forth from a 


100 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


lower moral plane than that of Christ, we become 
false witnesses, and may bring destruction on im- 
mortal souls that are influenced by us. 

Nothing will take the place of this loyalty to 
Christ in our lives. First and last, in youth and 
middle age and old age, we are witnesses to him 
who has revealed to us his divine purpose and love 
in the forgiveness of our sins. 

One of the most beautiful things that Ian Mac- 
Laren ever wrote was the story which he called 
‘‘His Mother’s Sermon,’’ which describes the death- 
bed of a mother and her plea to her son whom she 
had dedicated to the ministry. 


He was broken that day, and his sobs shook the bed, for 
he was his mother’s only son and fatherless, and his 
mother, brave and faithful to the last, was bidding him 
farewell. 

“Dinna greet like that, John, nor break yir hert, for it’s 
the will o’ God, and that’s aye best. 

“Here’s my watch and chain,” placing them beside her 
son, who could not touch them, nor would lift his head, 
“and when ye feel the chain about yir neck it will mind 
ye o’ yir mother’s arms. 

“Ve ’ill no forget me, John, I ken that weel, and I'll 
never forget you. I’ve loved ye here and I’ll love ye yon- 
der. Th’ill no be an ’oor when I’ll no pray for ye, and Ill 
ken better what to ask than I did here; sae dinna be com- 
fortless.” 

Then she felt for his head and stroked it once more, but 
he could not look nor speak. 

“Ye ’ill follow Christ, and gin he offers ye his cross ye ’ill 


CHRISTIAN VISION TRANSLATED INTO LIFE (01 


no refuse it, for he aye carries the heavy end himsel’. He’s 
guided yir mother a’ thae years, and been as gude as a 
husband since yir father’s death, and he ’ill hold me fast tae 
the end. He ‘ill keep ye too, and, John, I'll be watchin’ 
for ye. Ye ‘ill no fail me,” and her poor cold hand that 
had tended him all his days tightened on his head. 

But he could not speak, and her voice was failing fast. 


“T canna see ye noo, John, but I kno here, an’ I’ve Tve _ 
just one other wish. d calls ye to ae ministry, yt ye 
"iT no refuse, an’ the first day ye preach in yir ain kirk, 


spe. de word for hrist, an’, John, I'll hear ye ~ 


that day, tho ye ‘Ino sec me,and Dl be satished Fai 
minute after she whispered, “Pray for me,” and he 
cried, “My mother, my mother.” 
It was a full prayer, and nothing left unasked of Mary’s 
Son. 
And when the day came, and the boy came back 
to preach the first sermon in the old home, he was 
true to the mother’s prayer, and his loyal witness 
to Christ won all hearts and melted them all into 
love for their Savior. 
My friends, we are all preachers in this highest 
sense of bearing witness. The supreme need of our 
time is for this-loyal-witness.to Christ not only in ae 
the pulpit, but in the factory and in the s shop, in 
the store and in the great business houses. No man h Legh < 
has a greater pulpit to-day ‘than the sincere and Ate 
honest Christian who stands in tender loyalty to Sincet 
Christ among his employees in business relations. _ a ee 
Each one of us in our own place, in our profession, ’ 
"<U} are! 


in our business or our social relations, have oppor- 


102 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


tunities peculiar to ourselves of bearing effective 
witness for our Lord. One of the greatest witnesses 
for Christ in this country in the splendid influence 
which went out from it during the past generation, 
was that borne by Professor Agassiz, our great 
Christian naturalist. In some scientific circles of 
his day the loyal avowal of his Christian faith 
brought upon Agassiz ridicule and scorn. But he 
never wavered in his teaching on that account. He 
had beheld the vision of the Christ. He had a 
great and sacred faith in himself, and his course 
grew brighter with Christian confidence. He came 
up out of tribulations of doubt and infidelity mto 
the clear regions of faith, and like Paul he was not 
disobedient unto the heavenly vision. 

A keen sense of what we owe to Christ as our 
Savior will constrain us to loyalty as witnesses for 
him. Mr. Spurgeon, a short time before he died, 
felt such an overwhelming sense of obligation and 
indebtedness to Christ that he said, ‘‘I will sit up 


_in_bed_during the last hours of my life and ery, 
‘Wi j ipes we are healed!’ ”’ 


Christ has given us wonderful inspiration to 
loyalty as witnesses. How splendidly he says, ‘‘If 
any man confess me before men, him will I also 
confess before my Father and his holy angels.”’ 
If we are loyal witnesses to Christ; here, he will be 


CHRISTIAN VISION TRANSLATED INTO LIFE 103 


a loyal witness to us there in the immortal life. We 
are now choosing our companions not for time only, 
but for eternity. We are making up our friend- 
ships not for this world only, but for all worlds. It 
is open for us now to enter into brotherhood with 
the bravest and holiest spirits of our race, and 
share in their glory and triumph throughout eter- 
nity. The poet has a vision of that day and ex- 
claims: 


“Ah, see the fair chivalry come, the companions of Christ! 
White horsemen, who ride on white horses, the knights 
of God! 
They for their Lord and their Lover who sacrificed 
All, save the sweetness of treading where he first trod! 


“These through the darkness of death, the dominion of 
night, 
Swept, and they woke in white places at morning tide; 
They saw with their eyes, and sang for joy of the sight, 
They saw with their eyes the eyes of the Crucified. 


“Now, whithersoever he goeth, with him they go; 
White horsemen, who rode on white horses—oh, fair 
to see! 
They ride where the rivers of Paradise flash and flow, 
White horsemen, with Christ their Captain: for ever 
he!” 


GOD THE BEST 
PAYMASTER 


rent 
2% 
S 


GOD THE BEST PAYMASTER 


“The Lord is able to give thee much more than this.”— 
II Chronicles XXV: 9. 


HE words of the text were spoken by a messen- 

ger of God to Amaziah, who was at the time 
king of Judah. He was a war-like man, and desired 
very much to expand his territory. He seems to 
have been of soldierly quality, and to have been 
consumed by ambition for military glory. There is 
no account in the record of his having been imposed 
upon in any way, or that his neighbors had given 
him any reason to make war. He seems to have 
simply been greedy of conquest and determined 
to overrun the Edomites, murder the inhabitants, 
and steal their territory. He was not strong 
enough to do this alone, and having a good fat 
treasury at the time, he determined to hire soldiers 
from Israel. And so he entered into negotiations 
with the king of Israel, and bargained for one 
hundred thousand men, for whom he laid down a 
bounty of one hundred talents of silver, a large 
sum of money for that day. By the aid of these 
men he had an army of four hundred thousand 


107 


108 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


soldiers at his disposal. He gloated at the pros- 
pects of victory over Edom, and counted their 
lands adjoining him to be as good as his own. Just 
then, when he was about to start forth with his in- 
vading army, there came a prophet from God with 
a message which was a wet blanket on all his plans. 
He had left God out of the account, and that is 
never wise. The prophet came with the declara- 
tion that if he took with him these hundred thou- 
sand men whom he had hired of Israel, he marched 
to certain defeat. Now it does not appear that 
Amaziah doubted for a moment the credentials of 
the man of God. But his great dismay was con- 
cerning the hundred talents of silver which he had 
given as a bounty, and which of course there would 
be no chance to get back. Amaziah was a thrifty 
soul as well as ambitious, and the thought of losing 
all that money grieved him to the heart. But 
when he exclaimed, ‘‘But what shall we do for the 
hundred talents which I have given to the army 
of Israel?’’ the prophet answered without a 
moment’s hesitation, ‘‘The Lord is able to give 
thee much more than this.’’ 


I 
Here, then, is our theme. Amaziah is not the 
only man who has come face to face with the prob- 


GOD THE BEST PAYMASTER 109 


lem of self-denial in the path of duty. But how- 
ever great the temptation to go contrary to God’s 
desire, it may be always spoken truthfully to every 
man tempted to find his prosperity in sin that God 
is able to give him much more than is promised by 
evil. Amaziah had been touched in his money- 
nerve, and that is a very sensitive nerve. Judas 
Iscariot has been held up to condemnation with 
peculiar bitterness through all the centuries since 
he sold his Lord for thirty pieces of silver. He 
has been looked upon as the incarnation of covetous- 
ness, and Judas has been thought of as a sort of 
inhuman monster. The artists have usually taken 
that view. Holbein’s face of Judas is one to make 
you shudder; a face such as you imagine when you 
read Shakespeare’s description of Shylock; such a 
face as Cruikshank sketched of the vile old Jew 
whom Dickens puts in the pillory in ‘‘Oliver 
Twist ;’’ meanness, cowardice, cunning, malice, 
cruelty, all seem to blend together into a face that 
is hideous. But I see no reason why we should 
think that Judas had a face like that. How can 
we believe that Judas lived three years in the inti- 
mate association of Jesus Christ, sharing his meals, 
conversing with him every day, witnessing his 
miracles of healing and of salvation; and yet have 
been living a base, vile life of which a revolting 


110 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


face like that these artists have given him would 
have been the proper dial-plate. No, I imagine that 
Judas was very much like men now. The trouble 
with him was that he was a selfish man, with this 
rotten spot of money-greed in him, and he did not 
banish it, but allowed it to live and grow in his 
soul. I have sympathy with an artist who says, ‘‘If 
I had painted a Judas, I would have selected a 
smiling, silly-like, nice man.’’ A good many men 
who are consciously doing wrong for gold, and are 
closing their bowels of compassion and mercy 
against the needs of the kingdom of Christ and of 
their poor brothers among their fellow men, could 
find out very easily what Judas looked like if they 
would go and look in the glass the first time they 
are at home. But oh, the pity and the tragedy of 
the life of Judas. Over and over again in a hun- 
dred ways God said to Judas that he was able to 
give him much more than was the world, and how 
much more he did give John and Peter and all the 
rest of that little band of friends. Judas clutched 
for the gold and he got the rope of the suicide. Put 
over against him John on the Isle of Patmos, when 
he is a man nearly a hundred years old, with 
heaven in his face and the dreamy far-away look 
in his eyes, as he beholds those visions of infinite 
beauty which he has recorded in his great book that 
closes the Bible. 


GOD THE BEST PAYMASTER ut 


We are in the midst of a great epoch of physical 
prosperity in America, when hundreds of thousands 
of men have gone money-mad. What would have 
meant a very rich man fifty years ago is not counted 
much to-day. The old simple life of our fathers 
has been forgotten, and men scramble to-day, at 
the cost of their health, of their lives, and often of 
their very souls, that they may get rich quick. The 
warning of God’s word needs to be rung out again 
and again. We have been sowing to the wind, and 
we are beginning to reap the whirlwind. During 
the last two years in America we have seen more 
men who were the possessors of great fortunes, and 
who had great financial influence, who had stood as 
the synonym of honor and manliness, set in the pil- 
lory of public condemnation, and branded as in- 
famous, dishonorable, and contemptible, than we 
have had in any twenty years before, and it seems 
quite probable that the end is not yet. Let any 
man who is tempted to get business success and ac- 
quire money at the cost of his religion, at the ex- 
pense of his peace with God, and his communion 
with Jesus Christ as his personal Savior, be warned 
by all these things. I come to you humbly as 
God’s minister to-day, to say to you, as the prophet 
said to Amaziah, that no matter what is promised 
you for selling your conscience, ‘‘God is able to 
give you much more than this.”’ 


112 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


II 


This is a time when scholarly men and women, 
people with bright intellects and cultivated brains, 
are in danger of being led into an attitude, not of 
open infidelity and rebellion against God, but of 
a mocking sneering of wit against religion, against 
the Bible, against the church, and things that have 
been esteemed sacred. The sneer is in the atmos- 
phere, in almost every flash of wit at the theatre 
or the opera; often in the magazines and in the 
public press; often in the after-dinner speeches at 
banquets, sometimes made by professedly religious 
men, the holy name of God, and the church of 
Christ, and the Bible, furnish barbs for the arrows 
of witty men and women. The temptation to this 
sort of thing to-day seems to be very insidious, and 
I wish to sound the note of warning, that whoso- 
ever is deceived into imagining that true joy of 
mind or heart is to be had in that way is being 
cruelly deceived. The worst deceived men in the 
world in our day are those of bright, keen, eulti- 
vated brain, who are seeking to get their joy and 
their happiness at the cost of goodness and of har- 
mony with the purpose of God. Don Marquis, a 
new poet to me, has published in one of the cur- 
rent magazines a poem, entitled ‘‘The Tavern of 
Despair,’’ which goes to the heart of this very 


GOD THE BEST PAYMASTER 113 


thing of which I am speaking, and illustrates it 
with more force than I can in any other way: 


“The wraiths of murdered hopes and loves 
Come whispering at the door, 

Come creeping through the weeping mist 
That drapes the barren moor; 

But we within have turned the key 
’Gainst Hope and Love and Care, 

Where Wit keeps tryst with Folly, at 
The Tavern of Despair. 


“And we have come by divers ways 
To keep this merry tryst, 

But few of us have kept within 
The Narrow Way, I wist ;— 

For we are those whose ampler wits 
And hearts have proved our curse— 

Foredoomed to ken the better things 
And aye to do the worse! 


“Long since we learned to mock ourselves; 
And from self-mockery fell 

To heedless laughter in the face 
Of Heaven, Earth, and Hell. 

We quiver ‘neath, and mock, God’s rod; 
We feel, and mock, His wrath; 

We mock our own blood on the thorns 
That rim the ‘Primrose Path.’ 


“We mock the eerie glimmering shapes 
That range the outer wold, 

We mock our own cold hearts because 
They are so dead and cold; 


114 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


We flout the things we might have been 
Had self to self proved true, 

We mock the roses flung away, 
We mock the garnered rue; 


“The fates that gibe have lessoned us: 
There sups to-night on earth 

No madder crew of wastrels than 
This fellowship of mirth. . . . 

(Of mirth . . . drink, fools!—nor let it flag 
Lest from the outer mist 

Creep in that other company 
Unbidden to the tryst.) 


“We're grown so fond of paradox 
Perverseness holds us thrall, 

So what each jester values most 
He mocks the most of all; 

But as the jest and laugh go round, 
Each in his neighbor’s eyes 

Reads, while he flouts his heart’s desire, 
The knowledge that he lies. 


“Tf God called Azrael to him now 
And bade Death bend the bow 
Against the saddest heart that beats 
Here on this earth below, 

Not any sobbing breast should gain 
The guerdon of that barb— 

The saddest ones are those who sport 
The jester’s motley garb. 


“Whose shout aye loudest rings, and whose 
The maddest cranks and quips— 

Who mints his soul to laughter’s coin 
And wastes it with his lips— 


> 


GOD THE BEST PAYMASTER 115 


Has grown too sad for sighs and seeks 
To cheat himself with mirth: 

We fools self-doomed to motley are 
The weariest wights on earth! 


“But yet, for us whose brains and hearts 
Strove aye in paths perverse, 
Doomed still to know the better things 
And still to do the worse,— 
What else is there remains for us 
But make a jest of care 
And set the rafters ringing, in 
Our Tavern of Despair?” 


To any bright young man or young woman 
tempted to the gay and giddy path which leads 
by many devious ways which shut out its real 
direction to ‘‘The Tavern of Despair,’’ let me say, 
as the man of God said to the old king of Judah, 
**God is able to give you much more than this.’’ 
The happiest life in the world is the sincere Chris- 
tian life. The great men who have reveled in 
beauty among the artists have been men who com- 
muned with Christ. The sensitive souls who have 
given us the great music of the centuries have 
been those who laid their musical harps at the 
feet of Jesus. The great statesmen who have 
builded the nations of modern civilization have 
been Christians. The poets, the orators, the su- 
preme writers who have known the soul’s best, 
and whose story we do not need to weep over, 


. 


116 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


have been those whose imaginations and whose 
briliant gifts were held in obedience to Christ, 
and who reverently wrought for their fellow men 
in harmony with the law of God. No matter what 
is offered you in the path of irreverence and mock- 
ery, ‘‘God is able to give you much more than 
this.”’ 
TL. 


Our theme has in it warning and inspiration to 
those who are seeking to live the Christian life in 
relation to deeds as Christian men and women. 
Dr. Dawson, the English evangelist, says that when 
he was in Chicago, and was visiting the Armour 
Institute, he was very much struck by the way in 
which they taught mechanics there. Here was the 
room with the scholar’s bench, and the scholar’s 
desk, and all the appliances for quiet instruction, 
but opening from this room there was a door that 
led direct into the place where were the forge and 
the grime and the hard work. When they had 
taught a young fellow the theory of how to make 
something, they said, ‘‘ Now, go in there and make 
it.’’ It is like that with our Christian lives. Many 
of you who are listening to me are saturated with 
sermons and with Bible teachings. You have truth 
enough. Are you putting that truth to work? 
What you need is to take the theory of Christian- 


GOD THE BEST PAYMASTER 117 


ity, the revelation of Christ in your own heart and 
character, and go among your fellow men, and see 
what you can do in reproducing a Christian life 
in some one besides yourself. The temptation 
comes to every Christian sooner or later to live 
simply the nominal Christian life, a Christian life 
which costs nothing in self-sacrifice, and does bring 
a certain respectability and dignity. I want to 
awaken from his lethargy every one who is tempted 
to be satisfied with that sort of a Christian life and 
say to him with all the earnestness of my soul, 
“God is able to give you much more than this.’’ 
And you must have more than this if you do not 
deteriorate from even what you are now. You 
cannot hold a thing to be true and yet live as 
tho it were not true, without losing the truth 
out of your soul. Savonarola, the grand old 
Florentine, who gave his life for the truth, used to 
say: ‘‘We only really believe that which we prac- 
tice.’’ And it has been well said that when a man 
says a thing is true and lives as tho it were 
not true, it becomes a lie to him and poisons his 
whole life. Once when an infamous criminal was 
executed, the prison chaplain was offering to him 
what are often called the consolations of religion, 
when the wretched man turned and said: ‘‘Do 
you believe all that? Do you believe it? Oh, if I 


118 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


only believed what you say you believe, I would 
crawl across England on my hands and knees on 
broken glass to tell men it was true.””? O my 
friend, if you are dropping down into a peaceful, 
self-complacent, half-worldly sort of religious life, 
let me awaken you to the great truth that ‘‘God 
is able to give you much more than this.’’ No 
Christian life is worth the living that is not ani- 
mated by the Christ spirit so that its supreme in- 
spiration is the hope and purpose to bring other 
men and women to know Christ. A traveler, who 
had gone over the old St. Bernard Road, past the 
famous St. Bernard Hospice, tells how he came up 
over the snow field just as the somber night was 
gathering. The first thing he saw was the iron 
cross upon its jutting crag. That was the symbol 
of redemption. Next he saw the lighted windows 
of the Hospice, the symbols of succor. But that 
was not all he saw, for when he entered the Hos- 
pice there were the monks, all girded, with lamps 
lighted, and the great dogs, trained and vigilant, 
standing ready, waiting for the first sound of dis- 
tress out in the black night, that they might seek 
in order to save that which was lost. Brothers, 
sisters, there is a picture for us. The city is full 
of lost men and lost- women. I do not mean the 
drunkards, and the gamblers, and the outlaws only, 


GOD THE BEST PAYMASTER 119 


I do not mean the women who are shamed and dis- 
graced only, tho I do mean these also. But mul- 
titudes of others who are respectable and proud, 
and hold their heads high, are just as truly lost in 
the eye of God, lost to all true goodness, as are 
these. And these lost men and women will not be 
able to see the Cross through the black night, and 
they may not be able to find the door of the hospice 
of the church; so we must go out and seek. This 
is the life to which Christ calls us, and if you are 
satisfied with anything less than this you are living 
a poor beggarly Christian career, and I shout in 
your ears, hoping to make you ashamed of your- 
self, that, ‘‘God is able to give you much more 
than this.’’ 

Nothing is sadder to my eye than the dormant, 
unused power in our churches. Here are hun- 
dreds of us who have pledged ourselves to the 
Christian life, and we do not mean to be hypocrites, 
and we do want to live worthy of our calling, and 
yet how poverty-stricken is our expectancy that this 
week shall see us bringing lost men and women to 
Christ! If.all you hundreds into whose eyes I look 
felt that you are each of you under obligation to 
bring one soul to Christ this week, and were going 
to give yourself to it with more fidelity than you 
give to your business, with more love than you 


120 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


give to your family, with more care than you give 
to your body, then what a power this church would 
be in the city this week! Brothers, this is not im- 
possible, it is not an idle dream, it is the very 
common sense of Christian life, and I pray God 
that the Holy Spirit may inspire in our hearts a 
deep and vital determination to exhibit in our 
lives the full measure of the Christ-spirit that God 
is able to give us! 

If we are to do this Christ must be the abiding 
guest in our hearts. Mary G. Brainard sings: 


“O thou, dear Lord, who stayest 
When all the guests are gone, 
When in its silent chambers 
The soul sits down alone; 
Our garlands all are withered 
Our sweetest songs are sung, 
The lamps which lit our feasting 
Have gone out one by one. 


“The gladness and the beauty 
Have vanished from our sight. 

The footsteps of our dear ones 
Have died away in night. 

Yet thanks to thee that ever 
Thou comest at our will, 

Thy voice is heard the clearer 
When all the house is still. 


“As on the mount of vision, 
Amid the shining three 
The overawed disciples 


GOD THE BEST PAYMASTER 121 


Looked up and saw but thee, 
So we, our brightness faded, 

Our sweet companions flown, 
Lift up our troubled faces 

To find thou art not gone. 


“Thanks to thy name that ever 
In grief thou dost appear, 
That by each deepening shadow 
We know that thou art near. 
Be Ruler of our feasting 
Thou ‘Lord of Love,’ alone, 
O thou, dear Lord, who stayest 
When all the guests are gone.” 


THE GOLDEN AGE 
OF THE SOUL 


THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE SOUL 


“Now there was long war between the house of Saul 
and the house of David: But David waxed stronger and 
stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and 
weaker.”—II Samuel III: 1. 

“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit 
against the flesh.”—Galatians V: 17. 

“Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of 
the flesh.”—Galatians V: 16. 


HESE scriptures remind us of the words of 

Jesus when he declared that he came not to 
bring peace but a sword. In a world with evil in 
it, peace can only come through struggle and battle 
and conquest. I have associated this Old Testa- 
ment fragment of story with these New Testament 
utterances of Paul, because there are certain pairs 
of men contemporary with each other in the Old 
Testament which are always used in the New as 
illustrating the battle going on between the fiesh 
and the Spirit, between the good and the evil in 
human life. The first pair of these men are Cain 
and Abel. Cain stands always for the fiesh—the 
worldly, sensual, evil man, full of envy, jealousy, 
and hate; while Abel stands for reverence, for 


125 


126 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


humility, for obedience, for goodness. A second 
pair are Ishmael and Isaac. Paul refers to this in 
this letter to the Galatians when he says, ‘‘ Now we, 
brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of prom- 
ise.’” You will note that he is talking to Chris- 
tians. He goes on to say, ‘‘ But as then he that was 
born after the flesh persecuted him that was born 
after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless 
what saith the scripture? Cast out the bond- 
woman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman 
shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. 
So then, brethren, we are not children of the bond- 
woman, but of the free.’? Another pair used in 
this way are David and Saul. Saul stands for the 
flesh, for the worldly, sensual man. Saul stands 
for the proud, arrogant man who does not fear God 
and will not obey him. David stands for the Spirit. 
With all his faults and his sins, and they were 
grievous enough, he was a man after God’s own 
heart. Not because he sinned; but because, sin- 
ning, he repented in humility, and gave reverence 
and loving service to God. So in this scripture 
which I have chosen as the key-note for our study 
we have in the battle between the house of Saul 
and the house of David the picturesque suggestion 
of that great struggle which is going on in the soul 
of every man who has his eye upon the golden age 


THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE SOUL 127 


of the soul when Christ shall be Supreme King in 
the heart and life, and the Spirit shall have com- 
pletely mastered the flesh. 

I do not need to argue with you about the fact 
of this battle going on in the human soul. It is 
a battle which each man and woman knows who 
has seriously undertaken to dispute the domination 
of the lower, fleshly passions and appetites and to 
rise up into the Spirit realm of high and holy liv- 
ing. There is not a man or a woman among us 
who has not inherited enough of the evil tendencies 
which sin has awakened in our human nature to 
make the struggle between the flesh and the Spirit 
a serious thing. Some people simply give up to it, 
and make the plea of heredity for all their failures. 
A man excuses his bad temper, which often makes 
him act like an insane man, to some ancestral 
taint, and so one sin and another sin is excused 
because some dead ancestor has bequeathed the 
bad inheritance. To do that is to give one’s self 
over to eternal defeat. Now the whole theory of 
Christianity is that our ancestors have no such 
power over us, but that it is our duty and privilege 
in the strength and power of the Spirit of God to 
master our inheritance, and in Christ’s name be 
king over our own lives. Grace Ellery Channing 
puts it in the strongest and clearest light: 


128 


SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


“Lo what am I? A patch of things, 
Mere odds and ends of lives flung by, 
Of age-long, rag-bag gatherings 
Pieced up by Fate full thriftily. 
Somebody’s worn-out will and wit, 
Somebody’s habits and his hair, 
Discarded conscience, faith once fair 
Ere Time, the moth, had eaten it. 

My great-grandfather’s chin and nose, 
The eyes my great-grandmother wore, 
With hands from some remote—who knows— 
Perchance prehensile ancestor; 
Somebody’s style, somebody’s gait, 
Another body’s wrist and waist, 

With this one’s temper, that one’s trait, 
One’s taste, another’s lack of taste; 
Feelings I never chose to feel, 

A voice in which I had no voice, 
Revealing, where I would conceal, 
Rude impulses without a choice; 
Faults which this ancestor or that 
Unkindly fostered, to my ill; 

With others some one else begat 

And made the matter worser still. 
They chose, these Masters of my fate, 
To please themselves, bequeathing me 
Base pleasure in the things I hate, 
Liking for what misliketh me; 

Out of the ashes of their fires, 

After the fashion of their bone, 

They fashioned me, my mighty sires, 
And shall I call my soul my own? 


“This motley from the Past flung down, 
This work with no artificer, 


THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE SOUL 129 


This prince, this poet, and this clown, 
Deific and a driveller; 

This bequeathed brain which shall conceive 
What things this borrowed frame shall do,— 
This will to serve and will to leave 

The outworn Old, the untried New,— 
This quick made up of all the dead, 

And this deep heart inherited,— 

I call these mine, and I will be 

King, emperor, czar, and Deity. 

The tenement may like me ill, 

The garment ill-befitting be, 

I will inl.abit kingly still, 

And wear my rags right royally. 

These hands shall do my will, not hers 
Who fashioned them to other use; 

These feet fare not as he prefers 

Who shaped them, but as I shall choose; 
Mine be the words these lips shall frame. 
And through my great-grandmother’s eyes 
I front my world, not hers, and claim 
Under no dead soul’s sovereignties, 

Aye, borrowed husk, head, heart, and hand, 
Slave on and serve me till we die: 

I am your Lord and your Command.” 


I 


The victory over the flesh by the Spirit demands 
a complete consecration on our part to the Christ 
life. We must take Christ to be our Savior and 
Leader in so true and real a sense that he will be 
able to give the Spirit full control of our lives. It 
must be more than mere theoretical Christianity. 


130 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Christ must be so completely King that we seek 
with perfect devotion to do his will, not our own. 
.» Miss Gordon Cumming tells how, when she was 
traveling in Japan, one night as she and some 
others stood on the steps of the hotel, they heard 
a call that came again and again out of the forest, 
and this was what it said. ‘‘Me! Me! Me!’”? ‘‘Do 
you hear that bird,’’ they said, ‘‘calling ‘Me!’?’’ 
And they called it the me-bird. There is a me- 
bird that is calling in every heart, the me-bird 
that is always longing for somebody to be stroking 
it down, the me-bird that never likes to see any 
one in front of it, the me-bird that is morbidly 
introspective. After a while Miss Cumming, on 
inquiry, found that what she thought to be a bird 
was only a crawling insect which made that curious 
sound with useless wings that were unable to carry 
it in the air. So there are many people who have 
imagined a life of self-cultivation to be a bird with 
wings that was going to carry them high above the 
earth in the blue vaulted heavens, but have found 
to their bitter disappointment, as King Solomon 
did, that, at its best, selfishness is only a crawling 
insect which can never get above the ground. 
The man who is going to win the great victory, 
who will rescue his soul from the mire and set it 
free upon its high career, must get the control out 


THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE SOUL 131 


of his own hands into the hands of the divine and 
glorious Christ. 

Prof. Henry Drummond, one of the rarest human 
spirits it has ever been my privilege to come in 
contact with, was once besought by a lady at 
whose house he had been entertained, to speak a 
word to the coachman who was in a few moments 
to drive Mr. Drummond to the train. She told him 
that the coachman was giving way to his lower ap- 
petites, especially on the side of strong drink, and 
she begged him if possible to do the man good. 
And as they drove along Drummond said to the 
coachman, ‘‘Suppose you were on the box and your 
horses ran away downhill, and you lost all control 
over them, what would you do?’’ ‘‘Oh,”’ said the 
man, ‘‘I could do nothing.’’ ‘‘Yes,’’ said Drum- 
mond, ‘‘but supposing there were some one sitting 
by your side stronger than you, who could control 
them, what would you do?’’ ‘‘Oh,’’ he said, ‘‘I 
would hand him the reins, sir.’’ ‘‘Ah,’’ said 
Drummond, ‘‘your life has run away with you, 
your appetites and passions and lusts are carrying 
you downhill, and you in your own strength can- 
not control your life. But, man,’’ he said, ‘‘be- 
lieve me, there is One at your side stronger than 
you, who offers to take the control of your life 
and make it what it should be. What will you 


132 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


do?’’ And the spirit of conviction seized hold 
upon the man, and with eyes swimming with tears 
he exclaimed, ‘‘Sir, I will give Him the reins.”’ 
Are there not some of you here now in just such 
a plight? You have lost the control of your life, 
it is running away with you—the passions and ap- 
petites and lusts of the flesh are mastering the 
better impulses and the nobler instincts of your 
nature. The good you purpose to do you fail to 
perform. The sense of weakness you have is humil- 
lating, but, my friend, the Christ who says of him- 
self, ‘‘I am the good shepherd, and I lay down my 
life for the sheep,’’ is able to take the reins of your 
life into his own hand. He can master the flesh 
and make it your servant instead of your tyrant. 
He can control your appetites and make them but 
the steeds that draw you on toward a great and 
glorious career. Will you not now yield the con- 
trol of your life to Christ? 


II 


The golden age of the human soul can only come 
through the conquest of the soul for goodness under 
the leadership of Christ. How different this is 
from any other conquest. It is a conquest that 
leaves no sorrow in its wake. There has been re- 
cently on view in the Paris Salon a picture illus- 


THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE SOUL 133 


trating a very impressive allegory. It is called 
““The Pedestal of Conquest.’’ The artist, Mr. 
William Laparra, has given a vivid impression of 
the sorrows and miseries that lie beneath the pedes- 
tal on which the warrior is crowned. At the base 
are the widows and the orphans standing on the 
edge of the newly open grave in which the hus- 
bands and fathers have been cast, their somber 
garments and haggard cheeks indicating their deso- 
lation. On the opposite extremity of the monu- 
ment there is a general view of family life, the 
bride waiting for the bridegroom who has kept a 
tryst with death; other women with the babes in 
their arms who have been made fatherless by war. 
In the foreground is the wreck of a man whom 
death has spared, but who must live on crippled and 
maimed. Above are the buttresses of the hideous 
temple, in which are the bodies of the slain laid in 
ghastly rows, tier on tier, up to the capitals of the 
Corinthian pillars which support the roof. In the 
front of the temple are the burning ruins of towns 
and villages, among which lie other bodies that 
are being consumed in the awful holocaust. Above 
all is the black horse of war on an abutment of 
the temple, with the dome clad in its garment of 
smoke behind him, and bestriding him is the war- 
rior brandishing his dripping sword. He has won 


134 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


fame, but if he would look down he would see the 
horrors, and the bereavements, and the desolation 
which have been the price of it. It is a picture of 
wonderful significance, about which crowds gather, 
gazing rapt on its sorrowful details. But how dif- 
ferent the pedestal of conquest upon which stands 
the lofty soul that has battled against lusts and 
passions and evil desires, until under the leadership 
of Christ he has come to victory—the noble, 
splendid victory of the Spirit. There are no mem- 
ories of cruelty and of rapine and murder to haunt 
his triumph. Instead, there grow beneath his feet 
the sweetest and’ most fragrant flowers that grace 
human life, for what says Paul? ‘‘The fruit of the 
Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against 
such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s 
have crucified the flesh with the affections and 
lusts.’’ 

I am sure there are some of you to whom the 
Spirit of God is speaking with clear voice, and you 
are drawn by heavenly magnetism to enter upon 
this struggle with new energy to make conquest of 
your soul for goodness. I would that I could bring 
you this morning to that supreme decision. In this 
story—indeed, in this very chapter, from which I 
took our first text—it is related that Abner, talk- 


THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE SOUL 135 


ing with the elders of Israel concerning their re- 
lations to David, said to them; ‘‘Ye sought for 
David in times past to be king over you: now then 
do it.’”” Do I not speak to some one who in times 
past has with more or less earnestness sought to 
have Christ king over his heart and life? But 
something has interfered and it has never been 
accomplished. I come to you and say, ‘‘Now do 
it!’? What keeps you back? I was reading the 
other day the story of a man who went into one 
of the English museums and saw, to his astonish- 
ment, in a case at the end of one of the rooms, a 
little steel key, apparently hanging upon nothing. 
He saw that there was above it a magnet. There 
were the two arms of the magnet reaching out to 
the key, which was longing, as it were, to come 
into that close contact which would let the magnetic 
current through it, and keep it close to the magnet. 
As the man got a little nearer he saw that there 
was a little black thread that had stopt the com- 
munication. There had been a downward ten- 
dency in the key which had been overcome, or held 
in suspension, and there was, so to speak, in that 
key an earnest desire for the new magnetic life, but 
that black thread held it back; and the gentleman 
felt a longing to take off the lid of the case and 
cut the thread and let the key go! My dear friends, 


136 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


I do not know what coarse black thread of earth 
it is that keeps your soul from yielding itself com- 
pletely to the heavenly magnetism of Him who 
said, ‘‘ And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men 
unto me;’’ but I do pray God that that thread 
may be broken and that you may yield yourself 
completely to be taken possession of by the life of 
the Spirit. 

Do not for a moment imagine that there is any 
lack of power in Jesus Christ to give you complete 
victory over everything that mars or hurts or de- 
grades you. It is the power of love that is re- 
quired, and the depth of the love of Christ is un- 
searchable. 

When Nansen was looking for the North Pole 
he once found himself in very deep water. He 
tried to take his sounding, but his line would not 
reach bottom. He took his book and wrote the date 
and the length of his line, and added ‘‘ Deeper than 
that.’’ The next day he lengthened his line and 
dropt it again and again. It failed to touch, and 
again he wrote down the date and the length of 
his line and added, ‘‘ Deeper than that.’’ After a 
few days he gathered all the line that could be 
found about his ship, tied it together and dropt 
it down, but it would not reach the bottom, and 
once more he took his book and wrote the date and 


THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE SOUL 137 


the length of his longest line, and added the note, 
“‘Deeper than that.’’ But, my friends, 

“Through all the depth of sin and loss, 

Drops the plummet of the cross; 


Never yet abyss was found 
Deeper than the cross could sound.” 


Give your heart to Christ, and the golden age 
shall come to your own soul, as it is coming to the 
whole world, after a while, under the dominion of 
Jesus. No wonder the poet, catching vision of that 
glorious day, puts his wreath of tribute on the 
brow of our Lord: 


“The world is glad for Thee! the rude, 
Wild moor, the city’s crowded pen; 

Each waste, each peopled solitude 
Becomes a home for happy men. 


“The heart is glad for Thee! it knows 
None now shall bid it err or mourn; 
And o’er its desert breaks the rose 
In triumph o’er the grieving thorn. 


“Thou bringest all again; with Thee 
Is light, is space, is breadth, and room 
For each thing fair, beloved, and free, 
To have its hour of life and bloom. 


“Each heart’s deep instinct unconfest; 
Each lowly wish, each daring claim; 

All, all that life hath long repressed, 
Unfolds, undreading blight or blame. 


138 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


“Thy reign eternal will not cease; 

Thy years are sure, and glad, and slow; 
Within Thy mighty world of peace 

The humblest flower hath leave to blow. 


“The world is glad for Thee, the heart 
Is glad for Thee! and all is well, 

And fixt and sure, because Thou art 
Whose name is called Emmanuel!” 


THE UNSHAKEN 
PILLARS 


THE UNSHAKEN PILLARS 


“T know him whom I have believed, and am persuaded 
that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto 
him against that day.’”—II Timothy I: 12. 

“We know that all things work together for good to 
them that love God.”’—Romans VIII: 28. 

“We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle 
were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”—II Corin- 
thians V: 1. 


OTHING is more apparent in our time than 

the lack of restfulness and repose. It is a 
nervous, curious, uncertain age. The Bible declares 
that ‘‘The wicked are like the troubled sea, which 
cannot rest,’’ but in our day it is a restless multi- 
tude that greets our gaze. Physicians tell us that 
there are many new expressions of nervous disease 
manifesting themselves in the present time. One 
cannot walk along the street in any great city with- 
out noting that multitudes of human faces are 
marked by anxiety. We live in a rush, appre- 
hensive all the time of danger. Yesterday people 
were talking about ‘‘the bicycle-face.’’ To-day it 
is ‘‘the automobile-face,’’ and whether it shall be 


141 


142 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


‘‘the balloon-face’’ to-morrow, who can tell. | All 
this indicates an uncertainty and a restlessness in 
the mind of the people. 

The same is true religiously. We are living in 
a time when a good many very bright people, 
notably certain novelists, trying to pique public 
curiosity so as to make a success in fiction, make a 
business of displaying their doubts. They seem to 
like to parade their heresies and skepticisms as a 
sort of evening dress of the soul in order to at- 
tract attention. In such a time it is good for us 
to stop occasionally to take account of stock, and 
notice some of the great unshaken pillars of our 
Christian faith which are as solid as ever. 


I 


First, we have Christian experience: Paul says, 
‘‘T know him whom I have believed.’’ There is a 
tonic in that expression. Paul has no doubts, be- 
cause he knows Christ. When a man speculates 
and guesses, we may listen or not; but when a 
great and good man says ‘‘I know,’’ we must stop 
to listen. When we want to know a thing we must 
go to the man who has had experience. If I want 
to travel in India, I like to find some man who has 
lived there, and who knows the people and their 
methods of transportation, and can tell me all 


THE UNSHAKEN PILLARS 143 


about it. If I find myself in some great sorrow 
or severe trial, it is not much comfort that any one 
can give me, unless it is some man who has had 
the same experience and who comes to me with 
sympathy in his face, and tells how he was once 
in that very condition, and how he came out. Then 
I listen. As one has said, a lecture on a loaf of 
bread by a man who had never tasted bread 
might be edifying; but a hungry man who had 
eaten and been filled could tell a much more in- 
teresting story, no matter how much less he might 
know of the chemical constituencies of bread; so 
when Paul says ‘‘I know,”’ our hearts are lifted up 
and we turn to him with hope and assurance. 
Christian experience is the strong pillar of the 
soul. Nothing can shake that. As Bishop Charles 
Gore says: In our everyday-life it is always that 
which we haye experienced concerning which we 
are most certain. Am I certain that sugar is sweet? 
‘that fire is warm? that food allays hunger? that 
exercise is healthful? that music stills the fears? 
that love of wife and children and friends is a 
deep ineffable joy? Certainly! I would stake 
everything I possess on my certainty of these 
things, for it is a certainty rooted in experience. 
When I speak about them I speak what I know. 
And so we never need be in doubt concerning the 


144 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


great realities of the Christian life; whether God 
is real; whether prayer is a power; whether the 
Christian life is worth living. It all depends on 
your experience of these great spiritual realities. 
No man who experiences them ean possibly doubt 
them. Uncertainty with regard to them is for him 
at an end. Out of the experience will come cer- 
tainty, as a rose opens from the bud. A lady, it is 
said, once asked J ames Simpson, the great Edin- 
bereh physician, ‘the discoverer of chloroform, 

““What is the most important discovery you have 
ever made?’’ The great doctor looked at the ques- 
tioner and replied, ‘‘ Madam, the greatest discovery 
» I ever made was the discovery that Christ is my 
Savior.’’ He had no doubt. 

Charles Kingsley, in his story of Alton Locke, 
describing Eleanor’s testimony to Jesus, says, ‘‘She 
talked of him as Mary would have talked just risen 
from his feet. . . . The sense of her own in- 
tense belief, shining out in every lineament of her 
face, carried conviction to my heart more than ten 
thousand arguments could do. It must be true!’’ 
That is what men always say in their inner souls 
when they hear Christians speaking of Jesus with 
the certainty born of experience of him! ‘‘It 
must be true!’’ 

The knowledge Paul had of Jesus, which gave 


THH UNSHAKEN PILLARS 145 


him in his own experience a divine comradeship 
with the Savior, is possible for every man and 
woman to-day, and is enjoyed by multitudes. 
There is a pathetic little incident in the life of 
Robert Louis Stevenson which illustrates the sort 
of comfort that comes from the sense of an un- 
seen comradeship. In his early days Stevenson 
was a fragile little child, suffering from a hacking 
cough, which often kept him awake night after 
night. He had a devoted Scotch nurse, to whom he 
owed everything—Alison Cunningham—and to 
whom he dedicated one of his books. Often when 
the boy could not sleep, this faithful woman would 
lift him in her arms and croon to him some of the 
old Scotch songs to pass away the hours of darkness 
until morning. But sometimes, when the little fel- 
low was more than ordinarily restless, she would 
carry him to the window in the silent night, and 
across the square in the front of the house she 
would point out here and there other lighted win- 
dows, ‘‘where,’’ says Stevenson in referring to it, 
“we would tell each other that perhaps there were 
other little children who were sick, and who, like 
us, were waiting for the dawn.’’ What a picture 
it is—the frail little child looking wistfully out into 
the black night and taking comfort from these 
lighted windows where, perhaps, there were other 


146 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


little children who were sick and like him were 
waiting for the dawn. It illustrates the wonderful 
power of human sympathy! The light of friend- 
ship in the dark night of our sorrow that helps us 
to wait for the breaking of the dawn. But clearer 
and more radiant than any other friendship in the 
world are the sympathy and friendship of Jesus 
Christ, that come to the reverent loving heart just 
as real to-day as when he came walking across the 
waves to the frightened disciples long ago, saying 
now as he said then: ‘‘It is I; be not afraid.”’ 
How beautifully Peter puts it: ‘‘Whom having not 
seen, we love.”’ 

A Russian writer tells us of the young count who 
went out from the palace on a bitter morning, and 
passed a beggar at the gate starved and blue and 
well-nigh dead with cold and hunger. And the 
count hastily felt in all his pockets, but he had no 
coin with him. He felt to see if he had any piece 
of jewelry, but he had not even that; and he stood 
before the beggar fumbling for the gift that he 
fain would give. At last, with a burning face, he 
said to the poor starved man, ‘‘I have nothing with 
me, my brother.’’ An hour afterward he passed 
into the palace, and at the gates he found the beg- 
gar, not starved and blue, but warm and glowing 
and happy. And the young count said, as he heard 


- 


THE UNSHAKEN PILLARS 147 


the beggar’s benediction upon him as he passed, 
‘‘But I gave you nothing.’’ ‘‘Yes,’’ said the beg- 
gar; ‘‘you called me ‘Brother!’’’ Love and sym- 
pathy and brotherhood bridge the great chasm, and 
the wondrous love of God in Christ Jesus lifts the 
sinful man out of his sense of hopelessness into a 
warm, glowing, loving sonship to God, and into a 
sympathetic brotherhood with Christ Jesus. We 
may shake some pillars which have been associated 
with Christianity, but no man can shake the pillar 
of Christian experience. A man may say he has 
not known it, but he cannot invalidate the joy, the 
_ comfort, and the gladness of multitudes of men and 
women who do know it. It stands unshaken. 


II 


The second pillar I wish to call your attention to 
is the divine Providence: ‘‘ We know that all things 
work together for good to them that love God.’’ 
Paul is speaking here also out of experience. With 
him it was a certainty. He had had his thorn in 
the flesh, his buffetings and beatings, his ship- 
wrecks; but after them all he declares his absolute 
assurance, as a matter of knowledge, that all things 
work together for good to them that love God. It 
is interesting to match Paul with Napoleon. 

Napoleon said cynically that God was always on 


148 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


the side of the strong battalions, but he lived to see 
that it is on the side of right rather than bat- 
talions that God always takes his stand. 

Lord Rosebery’s recent book on Napoleon is 
profoundly interesting in its sympathetic and yet 
judicial estimate of the most marvelous of modern 
conquerors. Napoleon appears to this last biog- 
rapher so great in his energy, his intellect, his 
genius, that he ‘‘enlarges the scope of human 
achievement.’’ He ‘‘fought the Austrians once for 
five consecutive days, without taking off his boots 
or closing his eyes’’; he would work for eighteen 
hours at a stretch; ‘‘his genius was as unfailing and 
supreme in the art of statesmanship as in the art 
of war, and he was as much the first ruler as the 
first captain in the world.’’ Ordinary measures do 
not apply to him; we seem to be trying to span a 
mountain with a tape. The conclusion arrived at 
is that Napoleon was the largest personal force that 
has ever come into the modern European world. 

Why, then, did his career end in defeat and 
exile? Napoleon’s own saying is a revelation on 
this point. ‘‘I am not a man like other men,”’ he 
asserted; ‘‘the law of morality could not be in- 
tended to apply to me.’’ He believed that religion 
was essential to the nation he ruled, but not to him- 
self. He was not antagonistic to it; he patronized 


THE UNSHAKEN PILLARS ~~ 149 


it rather. But for a man as consciously great as he 
to obey the Ten Commandments when they ran 
counter to his own views, appeared to him absurd. 
Humility was in his eyes no virtue, but an entire 
mistake. Yet humility alone could have saved him. 
‘The dangerous, the fatal element in Napoleon’s 
nature was ambition. In youth he was phenome- 
nally sane and well balanced. But little by little his 
knowledge of his own powers unbalanced him ; noth- 
ing seemed as important as his own destiny; ‘‘the 
intellect and energy were still there, but, as in 
caricature, they became monstrosities.’’ Then came 
the inevitable collapse of insane and impossible am- 
bitions; and at forty-six the man who had dreamed 
of governing a world became a captive exile. His 
conquests left little mark; the kings he made lost 
their thrones; France was beggared and exhausted 
by him; and the greatest gifts ever bestowed upon 
a human soul since the days of Caesar thus failed 
to help forward the world. 

If any one was ever great enough to do without 
goodness, Napoleon was the man. The result of his 
experiment ought to be enough to satisfy anybody. 
There is no need for smaller men to repeat the test; 
it ought to stand as a finality. Plain, simple good- 
ness is the necessity of great souls as well as lesser 
ones; duty is the supreme law, God the Almighty 


150 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Ruler. Napoleon failed, not because he was not 
great enough, but because he was not good enough. 
““Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, 
saith the Lord.’’ 

Victor Hugo was strongly of this faith about 
Napoleon. In his ‘‘Les Miserables’’ he paints a 
graphic picture of the battle of Waterloo, and at 
the close of it he inquires if it were possible for 
Napoleon to have won the battle. And he answers 
‘‘No,’’ and then he inquires why. ‘‘Because of 
Wellington?’’ ‘‘No.’’ ‘‘Because of Bliicher?’’ 
‘“No. Because of God.’’ And he continues to say 
that the weight of this monstrous man cast into the 
scales of human destiny was sufficient to disar- 
range the balances of the universe, and that over- 
crowded graveyards and starving children and 
mothers’ prayers were formidable pleaders, and that 
up from the suffering earth there went cries which 
God heard. And so in the narrower sphere of 
human_life.as well as on the larger canvas filled 
by the great captains of history there is every as- 
surance and certainty that God’s providence and 
care are over the good and true, and multitudes of 
Christian men and women are ready to sing with 
the poet: 

“T will not doubt, tho all my ships at sea 


Come drifting home with broken mast and sail, 
I shall believe the Hand which never fails 


THE UNSHAKEN PILLARS 151 


From seeming evil, worketh good for me, 
And tho I weep because those sails are tattered 
Still I cry, while my last hopes lie shattered, 

‘I trust in Thee.’ 


“T will not doubt, tho all my prayers return 
Unanswered, from the still white realm above; 
I shall believe it is an All-wise Love 
Which has refused these things for which I yearn; 
And tho, at times, I cannot keep from grieving, 
Yet the pure ardor of my fixt believing 
Undimmed shall burn. 


“TJ will not doubt, tho sorrows fall like rain, 
And troubles swarm like bees about a hive. 
I shall believe the heights for which I strive 
Are only reached by anguish and by pain; 
And tho I groan and writhe beneath my crosses, 
I yet shall reap through my severest losses 
The greater gain. 


“T will not doubt, well anchored in this faith 
Like some staunch ship, my soul braves every gale, 
So strong its courage that it will not quail 
To breast the mighty unknown sea of death. 
Oh! may I cry, while body parts with spirit, 
‘T will not doubt,’ so listening worlds may hear it, 
With my last breath.” 


Ill 
Then we have this other unshaken pillar of 
Christian faith, the assurance of the immortal life. 
Paul says, ‘‘We know that if our earthly house of 
this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building 


«< 


152 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in 
the heavens.’’ Paul had no doubt whatever on this 
subject. To him it was a certainty. You will look 
in vain for a single instance in all Paul’s teachings 
where he speculates on the subject and wonders if 
it is going to be true. Instead, he is always sure 
of it. He was absolutely sure that the building of 
God was being made for him. He was certain that 
it was better for him to depart and be with Christ 
than it was to remain in the world, and yet cheer- 
fully he waited the call of God. Now this divine 
assurance of Paul’s must have come from a con- 
sciousness of the spiritual life within him, from 
the eternal life which was pulsing in his own veins. 
He felt that the immortal life was already a part 
of his inheritance, and he lived it so perfectly every 
day that to him there was no great gulf between the 


spiritual and the physical. The executioner who 


made him a martyr for Christ would only set him 
free to enter fully upon the spiritual life. We too 
may be certain of our immortality only by living 


doubt of his resurrection or of our immortality 
with him. 

We must not confuse immortality with mere con- 
tinued existence.. To simply go on living is a small 


THE UNSHAKEN PILLARS 153 


matter, anda cheap matter. A jellyfish goes on 
living, but it is a very poor sort of life. The im- 
mortality which Paul ealls ‘‘the crown of life’’ 
was a life of noble thoughts, of holy purpose, of | 
divine fellowship, a life of high and holy service to 
God and to humanity. If we would be as certain 
_as Paul of our immortality, then we must live the 
same kind of a life. If a man is living a mean, low, 
vulgar life, a life that is simply animal, it is easy 
to make him believe that he is only an animal and 
that he will die as the ox does; but illuminate his 
soul with great truths, quicken his imagination 
into lofty flights, bring him into fellowship and 
communion with God, and great souls; cause him 
to know the exquisite joy of high service, and there 
are no arguments that can make him doubt his 
immortality. To such a soul heaven is not far 
away and the transition thither is a slight journey. 
A little child, when her father came to kiss her 
before she slept, used to say, ‘‘Good-night, father! 
I shall see you again in the morning.’’ And when 
the little one fell ill, and her father came to kiss 
her for the last time, that was still her greeting: 
“*Good-night, father! I will see you again in the 
morning.’’ And if we in the spirit of childhood 
will live in fellowship with Christ Jesus, we shall 
be able to speak with that little child’s certainty 


154 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


of the morning, and of the better day, and the 
fairer home, and richer life. 

The Bishop of London was visiting a little dying 
child in the East End of that great city. She was 
afraid to die. He could not still her terror at once. 
After pondering for a few minutes, he leaned over 
the child and said, ‘‘ Would you he afraid if I were 
to take you in my arms and carry you into the next 
room?’’ ‘‘Oh! no;’’. was the reply. ‘‘ Well, some 
one ten thousand times kinder and stronger than I 
is. going to do that with you. Heaven is no further 
than the next room, and Christ is as near you as 
I am.’’ After that she was at rest and her heart 
was full of peace. If we live in close fellowship 
and friendship with Christ, heaven will never seem 
far away. When Charles Kingsley lay dying he 
eried aloud, ‘‘How beautiful God is.’’ When 
Fletcher was too feeble to ery out, he said to his 
wife, ‘‘Wife, help me to ery out, ‘God.islove.’ ” 
Let us not be over-worried at the breaking down of 
the earthly house. It is God’s beautiful gift to us, 
and we will keep it in good trim while we may; 
but we are not in despair when it falls to pieces. 
There is fitting for us a building, a house not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens. 


“What will be best in heaven? 
To see my Savior’s face. 


THH UNSHAKEN PILLARS 155 


To know my sins forgiven 
Through his abounding grace. 
To seek no wayside lodging but my preparéd place. 


“To find prepared my dwelling 
In beauty none can tell, 
Earth’s palaces excelling, 
For he doth all things well. 
Christ is the Master-Builder, beneath his roof we dwell. 


“Beneath his roof are meeting 
The holy and the just. 
How tender is their greeting! 
How perfect is their trust! e 
God giveth joy for ashes, and gold instead of dust.” 


lex: 


THE MUSIC 
OF LIFE 


THE MUSIC OF LIFE 


“And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: 
and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and 
over his image, and over his mark, and over the number 
of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps 
of God.”—Revelation XV: 2. 

USIC is nature’s high-water mark. It is when 

the brook is in full tide and goes with strong 
pulsing current toward the sea that it gurgles and 
murmurs and sings in delicious music. It is at 
mating time, when their hearts are swelling with 
love and their life’s fruition is at the full, that the 
birds burst forth in song. When the writer of the 
book of Job would give us the noblest idea of 
beauty and glory, of sound and harmony in the 
universe, he declares that in creation’s dawn ‘‘The 
morning stars sang together.’’ When God would 
give the most glorious prelude to the birth of Jesus’ 
angels sang to the shepherds on the plains of 
Bethlehem. 

In the wonderful imagery of our text we are told 
of those who have come to that perfection of human 
living that the harps of God of right belong to 
them. That is to say, they have reached life’s 


159 


160 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


highest goal. They have come to that station in 
life, to that stand in character, to that point of 
triumph, that music is the natural expression of 
their living. As the best life must of necessity be 
the ambition of every true man and woman in the 
world, we surely cannot have a more interesting or 
helpful task than to study the characteristics of 
these people who have come to so glorious a 
triumph. 
T 
When we enter upon this search we have first 


qa thought of power. Our text says that the harps 


of God are given to those who stand upon ‘‘the 
sea.’’ What a brilliant figure and how suggestive! 
The figure is not a brook, or even a river or a 
lake, but it is that of the ocean. It is the wide, 
deep sea with its almost limitless expanse of wave, 


’ with its rising and falling tide, with its marvelous 


power to toss the giant ships upon its bosom as 
tho they were playthings, to crush the mightiest 
works of man with irresistible force. This is the 
figure used here to suggest the character and per- 
sonality of the man to whom is given the harp of 
God. It suggests a strong, resourceful, splendid, 
glorious personality, and such the Christian char- 
acter and personality must ever be. It must have 
a power about it too great to be limited to this 


THE MUSIC OF LIFE 161 


} 


Ee 
_world. The sea has a wide horizon. Its vision is 
not hemmed in by any narrow bay or inlet, it 
reaches across thousands of miles and touches conti- 
nents on all sides of the world. So the Christian 
man must have wide horizons, and life must be to 
him no mere earth-digging affair. A writer of dis- 
tinetion was dining some time ago in a palatial 
hotel in one of our largest cities with a man of great 
wealth, many times a millionaire. This modern 
Creesus said to his neighbor, ‘‘It is a good dinner, 
isn’t it? You know,”’ he continued, ‘‘when a man 
gets to be my age (he was nearly sixty) this is one 
of the very few pleasures of life.’? Think what a 
tragedy that was! Here was a man with such re- 
sources as to be able, if he willed, to bless humanity 
at many points the wide world round. He could 
have reached around the earth to open blind eyes, 
unstop deaf ears, and make life sweeter to thou- 
sands of his fellow men, and yet one of the few 
pleasures of his life was a good dinner. Let no 
young man or young woman allow the visions 
which always come to youth to narrow into that 
of the mere money-grubber. Great-souled men and 
women hke John Howard, Florence Nightingale, 
Carey, and Livingston, and multitudes of others, 
had eyes that looked around the earth. They were 
men and women like the sea, and they awoke music 


A 


s id 
* " i} foe ae 
PS AF Pu Anke T 8 


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~ os m . 
tnt es Ma ry ania ry : — 
eo tht t;,.6.4 Ce, hoeg (he 


AA * i. _ 


r ‘f. $- Daw St.1wny 
ute ” SERMONS (WHICH HAVE a 8 OUES 
jock AAAAnoft ok 


é VU 7 Ar t 
in many a Avainh ienell Such people are too 


‘great for their life force to be spent in this little 


world alone. They come to the end of their earthly 
experience with their vitality unabated. It was 
once said of a Christian master by his servant who 
had just come from his death-bed, “He > is dying 
full of life.’’ Just as a tidal river ceases to be the 
river at the spot where the ocean comes in to meet 
it, so the great ocean of eternity has been flowing 


<j, In to meet the life of the true Christian, and he 


dies full of life. Paul died full of life when he 


_eould say: ‘‘I am now ready to be offered.”’ 
“Stephen died full of life when he could ery 


triumphantly, ‘‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 
Death is swallowed up of life in such cases. 


é II 


“We have also here in our text a thought of purity 


»~ and sincerity. This is ‘‘a sea of glass.’? That 


indicates the perfection of purity and the absolute 
sincerity of life. Dr. Jowett comments on this 
seripture, If you were to come to such lives and 
take up as it were a tumblerful, it would be as if 
from a filtered spring. If you took as it were a 
eupful of their imagination, it would be trans- 
parent. If you took a sample of their affections, 
there would be no mire, no unclean sediment. If 


THE MUSIC OF LIFE 163 


you went into their morality generally, it would be 
equally clear and pure, and you would have to 
say, ‘‘It is a sea of glass.’’ A character like that 
may be deep, but you can see to the bottom of it, 
you can see clear through it—such characters are 
simple, candid, translucent. It is this perfect sin- 
cerity of character which is absolutely essential to 
music of the highest and noblest sort in human life. 
Corrupt imaginations, impure thoughts, unclean 
motives, selfish purposes—all these are fatal to the 
music of life. It is the open, candid, simple, child- 
like men and women, honest and true in their love 
to God, in their service for God, unselfish in their 
fellowship and service of fellow man, whose souls 
are full of music. We may cheat our fellow 
men. We may deceive them for a while as to the 
sincerity and purity of our natures. But we can 


never deceive God so that we shall have the music oe 


of life without sincerity. 

Dr. Watkinson tells about a gentleman in Lon- 
don who was a great joker, and on one occasion 
he gave a garden party in which he thought he 
would surprize his friends with some interesting 
little tricks. All the trees in the garden were dis- 
tinguished by particular associations with which 
they were certainly unfamiliar. There was a wil- 
low tree with great scarlet blossoms, and an ever- 


1644 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


green bearing roses, an elm tree rich with yellow 
oranges, and an oak bearing not acorns, but apples. 
In such a case how would you know a tree by its 
fruits? You could not, of course. The fruits never 
unfolded from those trees at all. They were only 
stuck on, or tied on, to give a certain artificial 
effect. Now there is a vast deal of that sort of 
thing in society to-day. There are a multitude of 
people who are surrounded with Christian environ- 
ments, and who are so hedged about by the in- 
fluence of the Christian church that they have a 
great many virtues in form that they do not possess 
in essence. They have a great many proprieties 
tied onto their lives that have no vital root in their 
consciences or affections. These may be able to de- 
ceive their fellow men, but they never deceive God, 
and such lives never sing. »No music will ever 
burst forth, like the song from the breast of a bird 
in spring time, from such a heart. 


III 


We have also a thought of loving sympathy. 
You will notice that it is not only ‘‘a sea of glass,’’ 
which might suggest coldness and ice, as well as 
purity, but it is ‘‘a sea of glass mingled with fire.”’ 
You cannot fail to get here both purity and heat. 
It is not only goodness, but it is goodness warmed 


THE MUSIC OF LIFE 165 


with sympathy. It is goodness hot with loving 
enthusiasm. The life that gives music to the world 
must be permeated by love and sympathy. There 
are many people who are as technically good as the 
Pharisees and just as dull and-unlovable. There 
ii 
are many people who-are good, “but good for noth- 
ing. They are goody-goody. Me may be very 
“regular and yet_very useless. It is nof-efiough to 
be good, we must be humanly good. Our goodness 
is must..be. electrified by the dynamo of love. We 
must have sympathy and_self-sacrificing devotion ; 
then our goodness loses all its stiffness and unat- 
tractiveness, and becomes the most charming and 
lovely thing in the world. It is love that gives the 
value to all human service. Robert Louis Steven- 
son had a marked power of attracting people to 
himself by the very warmth of his personality as 
well as by the kindness of his behavior. In one of 
his books of reminiscence concerning his life in 
Samoa, he tells how one day, when the cook was 
away, he told another servant, Sasimo, just to 
bring him a little bread and cheese for lunch to 
his reading-room. But to his surprize he was served 
with an excellent meal—an omelet, a good salad, 
and perfect coffee. ‘‘Who cooked this?’’ asked 
Stevenson. ‘‘I did,’’ said Sasimo. ‘‘ Well, then, 
great is your wisdom.’’ Sasimo bowed and humbly 


166 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


corrected him! ‘‘Great is my love!’’ It was love 
that gave skill and deftness to his hands, and 
added the music of willingness to the repast. Dr. 
Wayland Hoyt tells of a godly negro whom he 
knew, who was a cobbler. For years he had 
been a servant in the house and field, but he began 
to get too old and crippled for this and so took to 
mending shoes. One day the doctor said to him, 
‘*My friend, after you have done cobbling here 
have you any hope for the better world?”’ ‘‘Ah! 
master,’’ he replied, ‘‘when I sit here on my stool 
at work I feel that the Good Master is always look- 
ing at me, and when I take a stitch, it is a stitch, 
and when I put on a heel-tap it is not paper but 
good leather.’ The old shoemaker had the music 
of service because he had love in it. It is love that 
gives the charm to service and is its crown. The 
poet tells us that— 


“One prayed aloud his thanks, and many heard— 

But when he passed forth from the house of prayer 

He wore upon his face his secrets bare, 

While those who met him sighed, and thought with pain 
Of all the year had lost them, of the reign 

Of grief and sorrow on this earth of ours. 


“One wore upon his face the smile of peace, 
As if he held communion close with God, 
And loved the world and all who on it trod; 


THE MUSIC OF LIFE 167 


And those who met him smiled, and thought how fair 
The world must be to him—and straightway there 
Rose in their hearts a glad thanksgiving hymn!” 


IV 

We have here also a thought of struggle. The text 
holds the vital truth that the music of life comes 
only after conflict. It is the reward of victory. 
These people who stand upon the sea of glass 
mingled with fire and to whom are given the harps 
of God are the same people who were but recently 
fighting with ‘‘the beast’’ and have gotten the 
victory over ‘‘the beast.’’ The music springs to 
their hearts and fingers because of that victory. 
““The beast’’ stands for all that is selfish and 
wicked and mean in human life, and it is against 
“‘the beast’’ in us and ‘‘the beast’’ in the world 
that every one of us must struggle, and there can 
be no real music until we have been victorious. We 
are not all fighting the same beast. With one it is 
as Christ ,says about Herod, ‘‘a fox,” sly and 
cunning ; and again a man is ready to cry out with 
David, ‘‘My soul is among lions,’’ and another 
hears the serpent hiss about his path; and still 
another, who is not afraid of any of these, is eaten 
with the moths of self-indulgence and idleness. We 
cannot pick out each other’s beast and know just 
which it is, but you know, and God knows, and if 


168 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


there is to be any music, if the harp of God is to 
be yours at last, you must get the victory over ‘‘the 
beast.’? Some scholar has rendered that phrase 
“gotten the victory over the beast’’ into ‘‘gotten 
the victory out of the beast,’’ which gives another 
idea, as tho these victors had got hold of the 
beast and struggled with him until they had taken 
all his strength and absorbed it into their own 
natures. And it is surely true that every struggle 
we make against evil in which we come off victor- 
ious adds to our own power and increases the 
music of life. If we fight ‘‘the beast’’ in Christ’s 
name and for Christ’s sake, we may come out 
wounded from the fight, but they will not be the 
marks of ‘‘the beast,’’ but the wounds of Christ. 
St. Paul fought with ‘‘the beast’’ and was sorely 
wounded, yet he never said it was a tiger’s claw 
that had left its mark upon his body, but with a 
proud note of victory in his voice he cried: “‘I bear 
in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus!’’ This 
fight with ‘‘the beast’’ is the campaign of the ages. 
It is the battle of the human race. Every man and 
woman of us is in this struggle. Some it may be 
have fought and lost, and have given up to “‘the 
beast.’’ If so, God pity you and arouse you to re- 
new the fight in the strength of Jesus Christ. Some 
of us have won victories again and again, but none 


THE MUSIC OF LIFE 169 


of us are yet free from the struggle, and we shall 
never come to life’s true scepter, nor shall we ever 
know the soul’s perfect music, until our victory is 
complete. 

No doubt many of you have read, in Longfellow’s 
“‘Tales of a Wayside Inn,’’ ‘‘The Legend of King 
Robert of Sicily.’’ The proud monarch is seated 
upon his throne awaiting the arrival of his brother, 
the Emperor, and his second brother, the Pope, 
and secure in his worldly dominion and in his pomp 
and pride, listens to the chanting priests as they 
render the Magnificat—‘‘He hath put down the 
mighty from their seats, and hath exalted them of 
low degree’’—and he murmurs to himself: 

“*Tis well that such seditious words are sung 
Only by priests and in Latin tongue; 


For unto priests and people be it known, 
There is no power can push me from my throne.” 


Having so said, he falls asleep, and his place is 
taken by an Angel, his exact counterpart in form 
and feature. King Robert awakens to find himself 
condemned to a dark cell, and presently, instead of 
the king, he is the court jester; and daily as he 
passes him who has usurped his place the question 
is put to him by the Angel, ‘‘ Art thou the king?”’ 
Haughty, suffering, unsubdued, King Robert, fling- 
ing back his head, hurls forth the sentence, ‘‘I am, 


170 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


I am the king.’’ Then comes the day, the dawning 
Easter day, when a new self is born within him, 
and as it were the psalmist’s prayer is answered, 
and the heart of flesh has replaced the heart of 
stone. 


“And, kneeling humbly on his chamber floor, 
He heard the rushing garments of the Lord 
Sweep through the silent air, ascending evermore. 
* * * * * x 
“And when they were alone the angel said, 
‘Art thou the king?’ Then, bowing down his head 
King Robert crossed both hands upon his breast! 
And meekly answered him: ‘Thou knowest best. 
My sins as scarlet are; let me go hence 
And in some cloister’d school of penitence, 
Across those stones that pave the way to heaven, 
Walk barefoot, till my guilty soul is shriven!’ 


“The angel smiled, and from his radiant face 

A holy light illumined all the place, 

And through the open window, loud and clear 
They heard the monks chant in the chapel near, 
Above the stir and tumult of the street: 

‘He has put down the mighty from their seat, 
And hath exalted them of low degree!’ 

And through the chant a second melody 

Rose like the throbbing of a single string: 

‘I am an Angel, and thou art the King!’ 


“King Robert, who was standing near the throne, 
Lifted his eyes, and lo! he was alone! 

But all appareled as in days of old, 

With ermined mantle and with cloth of gold; 

And when his courtiers came, they found him there 
Kneeling upon the floor, absorbed in silent prayer.” 


THE MUSIC OF LIFE 171 


Let us not lose the lesson. The angel can never 
surrender the scepter to us until we have conquered 
our selfishness, until ‘‘the beast’’ is slain and our 
victory is attained. But victory is within the 
reach of every one of us, and with our victory the 
perfect music of human living. The music of life 
does not depend upon our wealth, or upon our 
luxuriant surroundings; but it depends upon our 
victory over ‘‘the beast.’’ Blake, the painter-poet, 
lived in his two rooms in perfect contentment, and 
said to the great world, ‘‘Leave me alone, leave me 
to my happiness and peace.’’ St. Paul had a very 
narrow place to live in in Rome—a cell in Nero’s 
dungeon. Some years ago I went down into that 
old prison, where it is supposed St. Paul spent the 
last few months of his life, and tho it was a 
hot August day, I shivered in its gloom and re- 
called how Paul had asked that his cloak might 
be brought to him by his friend who was coming to 
visit him. And yet in that cold dungeon Paul 
lived in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and in a 
spirit so full of joy and song that every soldier 
who was chained to him to guard him was con- 
verted to Paul’s Lord. His soul was full of music 
and has been waking music all round the world 
ever since. If we would have Paul’s victory, and 
like him, and these whom we have been studying, 


172 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


stand at last with perfect sincerity of soul, with 
boundless resources of character, and with the flush 
of victory on our cheeks, on ‘‘the sea of glass 
mingled with fire,’’ we must, like Paul, bravely 
fight the battles of life which confront us to-day. 
Let no struggle that threatens to come in the future 
give us fear or worry. To do our duty to-day, to 
be sure we are right with God at the present mo- 
ment, to live this hour with candid sincerity of 
heart, with strong courage, with loving sympathy, 
is the open secret of great and harmonious living. 
“Why fear to-morrow, timid heart? 
Why tread the future’s way? 
We only need to do our part 
To-day, dear child, to-day. 
The past is written! Close the book 
On pages sad and gay; 
Within the future do not look, 
But live to-day—to-day. 
’Tis this one hour that God has given; 
His now we must obey; 
And it will make our earth his heaven 
To live to-day—to-day.” 


GOD’S COMMAND 
THAT WE ANSWER 
OUR OWN PRAYERS 


GOD’S COMMAND THAT WE 
ANSWER OUR OWN PRAYERS 


“Wherefore criest thou unto me? . . . Go for- 
ward: . . . Lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out 
thine hand over the sea, and divide it..—Exodus XIV: 
15, 16. 


OSES and his great army of Hebrew slaves, 

who had but just escaped from their bondage 
in Egypt and were fleeing toward the promised 
land of refuge, became entangled in the wilderness. 
The news of this reached Pharaoh. This proud and 
wicked king had had severe handling for his sins. 
The plagues which had come upon Egypt because 
of his stubborn rebellion against God had broken 
him down for a time, and he had been anxious in 
his fright that the children of Israel should depart 
out of the land. But after they were gone and the 
loss of these hundreds of thousands of servants 
began to be keenly felt, Pharaoh and the leading 
people of Egypt regretted their action, and they 
wished they had not been so hasty in yielding to 
God. Now just at this time, when they were well 
ready for it, came the news that the escaped 


1% 


176 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Hebrews were confused in the wilderness and would 
no doubt fall an easy prey to a pursuing army of 
their former masters. Pharaoh decided to follow 
them and capture them. So with a large number 
of men of war, and mounted soldiers with their 
war chariots, he set out, and soon overtook the 
crowd of men and women and children who were 
traveling on foot. 

The knowledge that they were pursued brought 
great terror to the Hebrews. They knew they were 
no match in battle for the war-like and disciplined 
Egyptian soldiers. They pushed forward in their 
fear of capture until they came to the banks of the 
Red Sea, and there to human eyes ruin seemed in- 
evitable. Behind were the cruel tyrants deter- 
mined to carry them back to bondage, which would 
now, without doubt, be more severe than ever. On 
the other side, immediately before them, was the 
wide reach of the sea. To be drowned or captured 
seemed the only alternative. It was in this emer- 
gency that they cried out to God for help, and God 
responded to Moses, ‘‘ Wherefore criest thou unto 
me? Speak unto the children of Israel, that they 
go forward: But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch 
out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: And 
the children of Israel shall go on dry ground 
through the midst of the sea.’’ 


GOD'S COMMAND 177 


We have here a great theme; a subject worthy 
of our sincere study, not only rich in teaching, but 
one which should inspire our hearts to the noblest 
service for God and humanity. 


I 


The rod was the token of God’s presence with 
Israel. God had promised Moses that he would be 
with that rod, and when in the course of his duty 
he used it, it should be accompanied with divine 
power. So God has promised us that if with 
reverent and humble hearts we seek to do his will 
and go forth on the path of duty, his presence shall 
be with us. The history of the church gives 
abundant proof that God keeps his promises. One 
of the old hymn writers voices this faith: 

“Give me thy strength, O God of power; 
Then let winds blow, or thunders roar, 


Thy faithful witness will I be; 
Tis fixt; I can do all through thee.” 


Some one says that it is a kind of stored-up 
energy that is ours in God: Such as you find in a 
coiled spring, a sealed fountain, power held in 
leash ; such that, when it is once released, the work 
is as good as done. A recent article in a scientific 
magazine declares that ‘‘The storage power is the 
want of the age.’’ In these great Rocky Mountains 


178 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON ‘SOULS 


about us we see illustrations of its importance 
every day. The great cafions of the mountains are 
being filled with water, stored up, held back, and 
made to yield not only irrigation for the wide- 
stretching, thirsty plains, but power to drive 
spindles and turn wheels, and heat buildings, and 
light up towns and villages, and drive trains of 
cars a hundred miles away. So the Christian, and 
the church, which is a combination of Christians 
for Christian service, should be in spiritual things 
a storehouse of accumulated energy, ready for 
service—a storehouse filled by God himself. What 
may not such men accomplish! We are told that 
Michael Angelo, even after he was seventy years 
of age, when filled with the sacred fury of genius, 
would hew away at the marble of a statue and ac- 
complish as much in an hour as would occupy two 
or three ordinary workmen for a day. A man filled 
with divine ardor cannot be accounted for by 
earthly rules. You cannot measure a personality 
like General Booth, or his wife Catherine Booth, or 
a man like Chinese Gordon or Bishop William 
Taylor by ordinary rules. Who could estimate 
the achievements of a church filled with men and 
women conscious that the presence of God in them 
gives them divine power in Christian service? 
One of the Scotch professors, speaking of the 


GOD'S COMMAND 179 


threadbare discussion about Shakespeare and 
Bacon, says that Shakespeare was a plain man, 
therefore they say he could not have produced 
Hamlet, or Macbeth, or King Lear. These great 
works, they say, must have been written by Lord 
Bacon, and Lord Bacon must have been the son of 
a queen. Oh, the blindness of it! It is through 
inspiration that such works are done, through 
laborious embodiment of great ideas, which the 
spirit of truth and beauty sent into the soul. So, 
in the works to which God calls you and me, we 
are, indeed, above the level of our lives. In a real 
sense we rise above ourselves, becoming the agents, 
the instruments of God. Tho it is impossible 
for us to think too humbly of ourselves, it is im- 
possible for us to think too highly of the work 
which God gives us to do. It is one of the glorious 
rewards of the Christian workman to discover that 
his work has a value which he had no title to ex- 
pect. You undertake some duty with much self- 
distrust ; blunder in discharging it; persevere with 
difficulty; entertain an idea you have misjudged 
your vocation; but you learn, as you proceed, that 
God is working through you; that what you sow in 
weakness is raised in power, and that the works of 
which you only saw first that they were good are 
also beautiful and noble. It is the old story told 


180 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


by Jesus: ‘‘Lord, when saw we thee a stranger, or 
naked, or sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 
And the king shall answer and say unto them, 
Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done 
it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye 
have done it unto me.”’ 


II 

Our theme should teach us that God requires of 
us obedient faith. ‘‘Faith without works is dead.’’ 
We are not only to believe God, but we are to act 
upon our faith. There is nothing in the text to 
discourage the man in trouble from praying to 
God. We are plainly told to call upon God in the 
day of trouble. But the plain teaching is that God 
does not do for us what we can do for ourselves. 
We are often more ready to ery out for help than 
we are to help ourselves. We are more ready to 
call for more light, means, and privileges than we 
are to use faithfully what we possess. We are often 
more apt to complain, as the Hebrews did against 
Moses, than to exert ourselves; to wonder at what 
God hath done, at what he will do, than we are 
to lift our own rod and go forward. The Hebrews 
were crying aloud to God for help} yet Moses held 
in his hand the rod which God had promised to 
attend with the power which controls the universe. 


GOD'S COMMAND 181 


God said to him ‘‘Lift thou up thy rod, and stretch 
out thine hand over the sea, and divide it.’’ When 
Moses obeyed, the sea divided, and at the command 
of God the Hebrews marched forward with the wall 
of waters on either hand. It was not prayer alone, 
but obedience, and doing of duty faithfully, that 
they needed to achieve their triumph. The same 
is true to-day in all our Christian work. I was 
reading the other day Campbell Morgan’s story 
of Moody’s meetings, held in Oxford University, 
England. Morgan, then a very young man, was 
present. Moody was a man with but the barest 
rudiments of an education, and Oxford was the 
center of the world’s learning. Moody had only 
one thing in his favor. That was, he believed God, 
knew God was with him, and faithfully held up his 
own rod over human hearts, trusting that God 
would furnish the divine influence. A more un- 
likely man than Moody, to human eyes, for reach- 
ing university men it would be impossible to 
imagine, and during the first days he had to stand 
the insolence and the derision of hundreds of young 
students. Morgan says it was a sight never to be 
forgotten. His perfect self-composure, never los- 
ing his temper, keeping up the steady, loving ap- 
peal to them without a sign of discouragement. 
One evening Morgan went into the room of the 


182 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


hotel where Moody was speaking, and just as 
the after-meeting began there came into the room 
four or five men, well known to the University, be- 
cause they were on the University Cricket Eleven. 
They had all been dining, and were considerably 
excited, and they came into the room and began 
to make loud and rude comments, and to interrupt 
the meeting. Young Morgan put his hand upon 
their shoulders, and urged them to be quiet. They 
turned around and abused him, and continued 
their interruption; but Moody, who was watching 
the thing from the platform, in a moment came 
down the aisle, stept to the one who happened to 
be the captain of the University Eleven, and the 
best-known man at the time at Oxford, took him 
by the buttonhole, and said: ‘‘I want to speak to 
you a moment.’’ The man got up and Moody led 
him into a corner of the room. Morgan saw no 
more of what happened that night; but on the fol- 
lowing evening he went up onto the platform of the 
meeting. The room was crowded with undergrad- 
uates. He noticed that there were four empty 
chairs at the front, and just before the meeting 
began he saw walking up the aisle those four mem- 
bers of the University Cricket Eleven. They came 
on quietly, and took their places in the seats that 
were vacant. Moody said nothing at the time, but 


GOD’S COMMAND 183 


spoke to those college men exactly as he would to 
a crowd of workingmen. Indeed, it was the only 
way he knew how to speak. The Holy Spirit fell 
on the audience, as it did when Peter was preach- 
ing in the house of Cornelius. A spell fell upon 
that crowd of students which no one could resist. 
He told those young men of the sins which were 
killing them, he told them of the Savior who could 
save them, and there were very few of them un- 
moved, and those few who were unmoved at the 
beginning could not resist at the end, for as 
he came to the end he turned to the four men in 
the front, and said, ‘‘Now, you men, I am very 
much obliged to you. You promised me you would 
come and would listen, and you have done it, and I 
am very much obliged to you, and may God bless 
you and save you.’’ And that captain of the Uni- 
versity Cricket Eleven became a devout and earnest 
Christian, and the influence spread through his 
family and through the University. Obedient faith 
such as Moody exercised never fails of the blessing 
of God in the manifestation of his presence. 


III 
God puts the burden of the world’s salvation 
upon us. He does not send us out alone, but he 
proposes to work through us to save our brothers. 


184 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


And wherever men and women have done great 
service for humanity they have felt this keen sense 
of responsibility for what they saw needed to be 
done to help the world. They have heard God 
saying to them, ‘‘Lift thou up thy rod and go for- 
ward,’’ and they have obeyed. In the days of the 
Crimean War there was an unknown young woman 
in England by the name of Florence Nightingale. 
God laid the condition of the sick and wounded 
soldiers on her heart, and she obeyed the heavenly 
vision. Some of you have read of those dark, dis- 
mal sheds which passed under the name of hos- 
pitals, and you remember the vision that night 
after night was seen in those dreary sheds, a vision 
that will not fade for centuries from the memory 
of the world. 


Lo, in that house of misery, a lady with a lamp I saw 

Flit through the glimmering gloom 

And pass from room to room; 

And slow, as in a dream of bliss, 

The speechless sufferer turns to kiss 

Her shadow as it falls 

Upon the darkened walls, 

As if a door in heaven should be 

Opened, and then closed suddenly, 

The vision came and went; 

The light shone and was spent. 

In Britain’s story, in the long hereafter of her speech and 
song, 


GOD’S COMMAND 185 


That light its ray shall cast 

There proudly of the past, 

A lady with a lamp shall stand 

In the bright history of the land 

A type of noble, good, heroic womanhood. 

Florence Nightingale worked miracles in behalf 
of the suffering soldiers because she lifted the rod 
in her hand and in the strength of God did her 
best. 

Some seven centuries ago there was a young 
Italian keeping the feast with his friends one night ; 
and he wearied of the feast and of the jests. There 
was nothing wrong, only a friendly feast. He 
quietly withdrew and went out and stood thought- 
fully beneath the blue Italian sky. By and by his 
friends came out, and they walked home together, 
and they said to him, ‘‘ You are in love.’’ He said 
nothing, but he had a far-away look upon his face, 
like a man who is looking into another world. 
‘*You are in love. Who is it?’’ the friends said. 
“‘T am,’’ he replied, ‘‘and my bride is called 
Poverty. No one has been anxious to woo her since 
Jesus lived, and I am going to serve her all my 
days.’’ That young Italian became immortal as 
one of the greatest Christians who ever lived, under 
the name of St. Francis. He felt the burden of 
responsibility to serve the world. He lifted up his 
rod in God’s strength and went forward. 


186 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


My friends, it seems to me that one of the great- 
est needs of the church to-day is a keen sense of 
personal responsibility felt by the individual 
Christian for the salvation of the community. An 
English preacher quotes an old Scotch divine who 
once said, ‘‘ What troubles me is not the non-church 
going, but the non-going church.’’ A very wise 
and keen criticism. You know the old oft-repeated 
story of the boy who was asked if his father was 
a religious man. ‘‘Yes,’’ he said, ‘‘but he has not 
been doing much at it lately.’’ And I think that 
there is much in that story applicable to our 
churches. Somehow, for some reason or other, 
many Christian men and women do not keep the 
passion of their souls for Christ, and for the sal- 
vation of humanity, fresh. We have all heard 
Cowper’s hymn criticized, but I think he mew 
human nature very well when he wrote: 


“Where is the blessedness I knew 
When first I saw the Lord? 
Where is the soul-refreshing view 

Of Jesus and his word?” 

I doubt not there are many who hear me who do 
not feel the same glow, who are conscious that they 
do not have the same responsive spirit, the same 
whole-hearted passion of enthusiasm for Christ and 
for the conversion of their neighbors, as they had 


GOD’S COMMAND 187 


five, ten, or twenty years ago. Let us ask the rea- 
son why? And if we were to pursue that question 
from one pew to another, and from one heart to 
another, we would no doubt find that under various 
forms it is worldliness that has crept in and 
smothered the divine flame. Schiller says it is a 
scientific fact that the animal nature of man, if 
let have its way, becomes dominant over the spirit- 
ual toward middle life; and John Henry Newman 
says that unless they are subdued by high religious 
and moral principle, material interests inevitably 
submerge man’s whole nature into selfish indiffer- 
ence toward all with which self is not concerned. 
And Dante places in his immortal poem man’s en- 
counter with the three animals—the fierce lion of 
wrath and pride; luxury, the spotted panther; and 
the gaunt, hungry wolf of avarice—in the middle 
period of man’s life. There can be no doubt about 
it that men and women nearing middle age need 
to be aroused to the necessity of keeping close to. 
God as the only source of fresh impulse to right- 
eous and holy service. 

All that I have been saying should have quick 
and powerful application in our own hearts and 
lives. The Red Sea of difficulty and trouble, the 
sea of human need, confronts every one of us. 
With some of you it is your unconverted children. 


188 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


You are ready to pray to God for help to bring 
about their salvation; but is it not true that so 
far as you personally are concerned you have 
dropt into lethargy on the subject? God is say- 
ing to you, ‘‘ Why criest thou to me? Go forward! 
Lift thou up thy rod!’’ How many times I have 
seen an awakened mother, or an aroused father, 
pour out life and soul in such a stream of gracious 
and loving influence, that the children were imme- 
diately won to Christ! 


IV 


I must not close without a word to those of you 
who are not Christians, but who stand confronting 
the Red Sea of your condemnation. Your sins fol- 
low you as the cruel and angry Egyptians followed 
on the heels of those Hebrew refugees. God is 
commanding you also to lift up your rod and go 
forward. Do you ask me what rod a sinner has 
that shall divide the sea before him, the sea of his 
guilt and condemnation? I answer, it is the cross 
of Jesus Christ. Your prayers alone can never save 
you. Look to the cross with confidence and love, 
and go forward in obedience to God. When Butler, 
the author of that famous book known as ‘‘Butler’s 
Analogy,’’ lay dying, he called for his chaplain, 
and said, ‘‘Tho I have endeavored to avoid sin, 


GOD'S COMMAND 189 


and to please God to the utmost of my power, yet 
from the consciousness of perpetual infirmities, I 
am still afraid to die.’’ ‘‘My lord,’’ said the 
chaplain, ‘‘you have forgotten that Jesus Christ is 
a Savior.’’ ‘‘True,’’ was the answer, ‘‘but how 
shall I know that he is a Savior for me?’’ ‘‘My 
lord, it is written, ‘Him that cometh to me, I will 
in no wise cast out.’’’ ‘‘True,’’ said the dying 
man, ‘‘and I am surprized that tho I have read 
that scripture a thousand times over, I never felt 
its virtue until this moment; but now I die happy.’’ 
So, my friend, it is Christ, the Christ on the cross, 
the Christ who gave himself for you, who is your 
rod of salvation. There is a beautiful passage in 
Browning’s ‘‘Saul,’’ where David has been playing 
before his melancholy master, and trying to lift 
from him the veil of madness, and at last has begun 
to feel the passion of love for the fallen king, and 
he conceives the Redeemer coming into human 
form in order to save Saul, and he sings: 


“Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for! My flesh 

that I seek 

In the Godhead! I seek it, and I find it. O Saul, it shall 
be 

A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me 

Thou shalt love and be loved by for ever; a Hand like 
this hand. 

Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the 
Christ stand!” 


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THE FAG-ENDS OF 
THE TREE OF LIFE 


THE FAG-ENDS OF THE 
TREE OF LIFE 


“And the residue thereof, he maketh a god.”’—lIsaiah 
UII Aang 
HIS is one of the most graphic pictures in the 
Bible. It portrays a man who feels within him 
some instinctive necessity of being religious, so he 
goes out among the trees in his woods and selects 
an ash tree, and he cuts it down and takes it home. 
By this time he is hungry, and so he uses the tree 
partly for fuel with which to bake his bread and 
to roast his meat. Then the cold weather comes on, 
and he uses still more of the tree to build a fire 
to warm himself. At last there is nothing left but 
the chips and the twigs, and he seems to be con- 
science-stricken a little that he should have for- 
gotten entirely the main purpose for which he cut 
the tree down, and so he gathers up these fag-ends . 
and makes him a god. The word picture as painted 
by the writer of this book is very striking: ‘‘He 
planteth an ash and the rain doth nourish it. Then 
shall it be for a man to burn; for he will take there- 
of, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it and 


193 


196 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


baketh bread; . . . He burneth part thereof in 
the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he 
roasteth roast, and is satisfied; yea, he warmeth 
himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the 
fire: And the residue thereof he maketh a god.”’ 
Was there ever anything more graphic, more real- 
istic in its outlines, more keenly ironical in its 
heart-searching description ? 

Now it seems to me that this incident is of im- 
portant suggestive interest to us, and that we 
should find in it lessons of the greatest possible 
value. All the forces of life may be compared to 
a great tree with its wide-spreading branches. A 
man has about so much force of every sort which is 
his heritage as a man. If he uses it in one way, he 
cannot use it in another. If a man gives all his 
force and power to worldliness, it is certain he can- 
not give anything but the fag-ends of his life to 
God. That is the serious theme I bring to you for 
consideration, that many people are giving the fag- 
ends of their lives to him who has a right to the 
first and the best. When we recall what God has 
done for us not only in our creation and in the 
marvelous adaptations of the beautiful world of 
sights and sounds and harmonies in which we live, 
but in his revelation to us in Jesus Christ our Lord 
and Savior, it is evident to us that any keen appre- 


THE FAG-ENDS OF THE TREE OF LIFE 195 


ciation of relative values must put our love and 
our duty to God in the place first of all. 

Some of you remember the story of Karshish, the 
Arab physician who at the time of Christ’s earthly 
ministry was sent by his royal master Abib to 
travel throughout the then known world that he 
might gather up everything of interest and value 
known in medicine. In his travels he made regu- 
lar reports to his master. In the course of these 
journeys he came to Bethany, and met Lazarus, the 
brother of Martha and Mary, who declares that 


“He was dead and then restored to life 
By a Nazarene physician of his tribe.” 


Naturally this was in Karshish’s line as a physi- 
cian. Nothing could be more interesting and noth- 
ing more improbable to a doctor than this story. 
So he follows Lazarus around and gives him the 
closest attention. He finds him as he says to be a 
man ‘‘with the spiritual life around the earthly 
life.’’ 


“His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here.” 


Karshish hears the remarkable story that— 


“This man so cured regards the curer, then, 
As—God forgive me! Who but God himself, 
Creator and sustainer of the world 

That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile!” 


196 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


This Oriental doctor had never heard of such 
a God, who not only cared for but loved his chil- 
dren. The idea was very strange to him. He 
even thought it necessary to apologize to his master 
for inserting such an improbable story. Neverthe- 
less, it fascinated him, and little by little it drew 
his interest away from everything else. All the 
new diseases he had discovered, all his curious 
spiders, his snake stone, and the wonderful recipes 
he had found on his long journeys, all were noth- 
ing to him now as his imagination took fire at the 
thought of a God who really loves men enough to 
seek to help them. In the awakened passion of his 
soul he writes to his master: 
“The very God! Think, Abib; dost thou think? 

So the all-great were the all-loving too— 

So through the thunder comes a human voice 

Saying, ‘O heart I made; a heart beats here! 

Face, my hands fashioned; see in it myself! 

Thou hast no power nor may’st conceive of mine; 

But love I gave thee, with myself to love, 

And thou must love me who have died for thee!’ ” 

It is impossible to fully appreciate the wondrous 

revelation of God in Jesus Christ without feeling 
as Karshish did that it is of supreme importance 
and demands the best there is in us. Charles 
Kingsley once wrote, ‘‘You may not believe it 
now, but there will come a time when all these 


THE FAG-ENDS OF THE TREE OF LIFE 197 


voices will be hushed, and then you will know that 
better than riches, better than fame, better than 
power, is goodness.’? And does not Jesus say, 
“*Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his right- 
eousness’’? 

One of the few unconditional commendations 
which Jesus uttered during his life and ministry 
was upon the woman who brought the costly oint- 
ment and poured it on his head. He declared that 
that should be remembered of her to the end of 
time, and to the end of the world, wherever his 
Gospel was preached. Why? Because she had 
done her best. ‘‘She hath done what she could,’’ 
said Jesus. The wise men who came from the Hast 
to worship Jesus at his birth brought the best 
things, the most precious treasures that the world 
held. Ian Maclaren has written very beautifully of 
the guest-chamber for which Jesus asked, where he 
might come with his disciples. He asks for the 
‘upper room,’’ the best room, the lightest, sunniest 
room, the room nearest heaven, the love-chamber 
of the soul. Ah, how we blunder when we give 
Christ the little out-of-the-way room somewhere in 
the attic or in the cellar. Some room that can be 
spared without sacrifice. You think you have not 
time to be hospitable to Jesus. Your own ambi- 
tions and selfish desires fill all the beautiful upper 


198 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


rooms. You would not turn Jesus out, that would 
shock you to think of, and yet you never dream of 
bringing him to the front, making him the chief 
guest, and giving him the best place. Your soul’s 
upper room is alive with all the gayeties of your 
selfish pleasure, but the world never sees the face 
and the form of Jesus in that crowded room. How 
unworthy to thus give Christ the fag-ends of your 
fellowship. 
if 


Many Christians give Christ only the fag-ends of 
their money. To support this statement it is not 
necessary to bring forward exaggerated types, such 
as the man who spends a dollar a week for some 
single personal luxury and counts himself generous 
if he gives half as much to the support of public 
worship in his church and the upbuilding of the 
kingdom of God in his community, or the other 
type of man who is like the colored brother in his 
giving to the Lord. 

‘“Yes, sir,’’ he said, ‘‘I gives the truck off one 
acre ebbery year to de Lord.’’ 

‘“What acre is it?’’ was asked. 

‘‘Well, dat is a different question. Truf is, de 
acre changes most ebbery season.”’ 

‘*How’s that?”’ 

‘In wet seasons I gives de Lord de low land, and 


THE FAG-ENDS OF THE TREE OF LIFE 199 


in dry seasons I gives him de top acre of de whole 
plantation.’’ 

‘In that case the Lord’s acre is the worst in the 
whole farm: for in wet seasons it would be quite 
flooded, and in dry times parched.”’ 

*“Jus’ so. You don’t allow I’se going to rob 
my family of de best acre I’se got, did ye?’’ 

Of course, in both these cases, and they are 
typical of great numbers, it is simply the fag-ends 
of the tree of life so far as money is concerned 
which is given to God. 

Nothing is excluding Christ from the hearts of 
profest Christian men and women to-day so 
much as the love of money. Christ says ‘‘Ye can- 
not serve God and mammon.’’ Paul says, “‘They 
that desire to be rich fall into a temptation and a 
snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as 
drown men in destruction and perdition. For the 
love of money is a root of all kinds of evil; which 
some reaching after have been led astray from the 
faith, and have pierced themselves through with 
many sorrows.’’ Notice that a man may not be 
rich, but it is the man with the fierce thirst for it, 
the man that ‘‘reaches after’? money, who is in 
danger. It is the reaching out of the racer, every 
muscle on the stretch until the soul burns with a 
passion for money. Some one says, it is a com- 


200 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


mon thing to say of such a man, whose whole soul is 
on fire for money, ‘‘He has got all his wits about 
him.’’ But that is just what he has not, for half 
his wits are dead. What are wits? Wits are 
powers of alertness, powers of discernment, 
powers of perception; and a man who has all his 
wits about him has his wits alert toward God. The 
magazines are full just now with long discussions, 
philosophizing over the extravagance, and the sins, 
and disgraceful follies into which the bright crowd 
of the younger rich men farther east have fallen 
within a few years. These men are bright men so 
far as money-getting goes, but they are blind on 
the side of God, on the side of a pure, wholesome, 
noble personal and family life. And the tre- 
mendous peril to the Christian church to-day is 
that many people in the church are unwilling that 
their religion should interfere either with how they 
get their money or with how they spend it. Some 
one has written a poem about those people at 
Gadara who besought Christ to leave their country 
because the devils had entered into their swine and 
their herds had been destroyed: 

“‘Rabbi, begone! Thy powers 

Bring loss to us and ours. 
Our ways are not as thine, 


Thou lovest men, we—swine. 
Oh, get you hence, Omnipotence! 


THE FAG-ENDS OF THE TREE OF LiFE 201 


And take this fool of thine! 

His soul? What care we for his soul? 

What good to us that thou hast made him whole? 
Since we have lost our swine.’ 


“And Christ went sadly, 

He had wrought for them a sign 

Of Love, and Hope, and Tenderness divine, 

They wanted—swine. 

Christ stands without your door and gently knocks; 
But if your gold or swine the entrance blocks, 

He forces no man’s hold—he will depart, 

And leave you to the treasures of your heart. 


“No cumbered chamber will the Master share, 
But one swept bare 

By cleansing fires, then plenished fresh and fair 
With meekness and humility and prayer. 

There he will come, yet, coming even there, 
He stands and waits, and will no entrance win 
Until the latch be lifted from within.” 


Christ departed from the Gadarenes and never 
came back, and you may depend upon it, my fellow 
Christians, that if we are to save our souls, and 
enjoy the blessings of God, it must be because we 
hold our lives open to God’s inspection, and recog- 
nize Christ as supreme ruler both in the making 
and the distributing of our money. I have for 
some time been ever more and more interested on 
the subject of tithing. For a long while I felt, 
like a great many others, that while tithing, the 
giving of one-tenth of one’s earnings or income 


202 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


definitely to God, had the divine sanction under the 
Mosaic dispensation, it had been done away with 
in the new Christian dispensation under which we 
live. But more recently I have been led to look 
into the matter, and I am now thoroughly con- 
vinced that that position is untenable. In the first 
place, the tithing system was in existence many 
centuries before Moses was born. Abraham was a 
tither. When he came back from the rescue of 
his nephew Lot he gave tithes to Melchizedee, the 
priest of the Most High God. And Jacob, when he 
had the wonderful vision of the heavenly stairway 
with its angels coming and going, at Bethel, vowed 
to God that he would throughout his whole life give 
a tenth of everything that was bestowed upon him 
to the Lord. Christ did not do away with the 
tithes. The only place that could be regarded as a 
criticism upon it is where he is rebuking the Phari- 
sees, not for giving the tithe, but for failing in the 
spirit of love and brotherhood in which the tithes 
should be given. Surely we modern Christians, 
with all the light, and beauty, and glory which have 
come to us through riches of salvation in Christ 
Jesus, should, at the very least, give as large a 
percentage of our substance to God as the old Jew 
who looked through a glass darkly. I do not think 
that one-tenth is as much as many of us should give. 


THE FAG-ENDS OF THE TREE OF LIFE 203 


Many of us ought to give three times that much to 
the service of God. But I do honestly believe that 
that ought to be the minimum, the very least 
which any servant of God gives, or, perhaps the 
better word would be, pays. We ought not to give 
what we bestow upon the church in support of 
God’s kingdom with any thought whatever of 
charity. There is no charity about it. We are in 
partnership with God. If we use nine-tenths of 
what we earn for ourselves and our friends, the 
other tenth belongs to God, and it is not a ques- 
tion of charity, it is paying our honest dues to the 
Most High. 

And God has promised that if we are loyal to 
him, and faithful in this partnership, he will bless 
us in basket and in store, and multiply our re- 
sources in physical as well as in spiritual matters. 
If you are satisfied with the security, you can pay 
your tenth with all gladness of soul. Harvey 
Reeves Calkins tells the story of a young German, 
Gustav Schwan. He was converted one February, 
and, in March, he began to pay his tithe unto the 
Lord. He had a little shop down town. Trade 
was very dull for a while. Nobody came to buy. 
To make matters worse, his stock was running very 
low. He could not collect certain large bills that 
were due. He had no credit at the wholesalers, and 


204 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


only a very small balance in the house with which 
to conduct the business and buy food for his wife 
and the children. He looked into the ‘‘Lord’s 
box,’’ where they kept their tithe, and found that 
he had a considerable sum which had been aceumu- 
lating a little at a time. At first he thought he 
would borrow the Lord’s money, but on praying 
about it concluded it would not be honest, and so 
took it, hard prest as he was, and gave his pastor 
two-thirds of the amount to send to China to sup- 
port a little orphan boy in one of the church 
schools, and the rest he sent to the church treasurer 
for current expenses. Telling about it, the young 
German said, ‘‘It seemed to me just like this: God 
will look down and see his box empty; he must 
have money to supply his work, so he will begin 
to fill his box again; and while God is filling his 
box, I will be getting the business.’’ Well, the very 
morning that the young German sent the sacred 
money on its way to do God’s service, a gentleman 
ealled and paid a large bill, saying something had 
reminded him as he was passing that way. Two 
more remittances came that day by post, and a 
large number of cash orders followed, some large 
and others small. In three days he was able to 
replenish his stock, paying cash for all he bought, 
his business was greatly increased, and the family 


THE FAG-ENDS OF THE TREE OF LIFE 205 


had turkey for dinner. But the best of all was, 
the Lord’s box was almost full again. And the 
young German ends his testimony, for this story 
was told at the prayer-meeting by the man himself, 
‘‘T have proved that tithing is good business for a 
young man just starting for himself.’’ 

Dear brethren, more and more I feel sure that 
there is a growing desire in our church for a great 
outpouring of the Spirit of God upon the people, 
resulting in our own spiritual culture and in the 
salvation of those who are without. Surely we 
should not overlook the direct and definite promise 
of God that if we will enter into partnership with 
him, and give at least one-tenth directly to his 
service, he will give us spiritual blessings, greater 
even than we dare to ask or think. Is not our case 
perfectly typified in that described in Malachi? 
God said then: ‘‘Even from the days of your 
fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and 
have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will 
return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye 
said, Wherein shall we return? Will a man rob 
God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, 
Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offer- 
ings. . . . Bring ye all the tithes into the store- 
house, that there may be meat in mine house, and 
prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if 


206 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


I will not open you the windows of heaven, and 
pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be 
room enough to receive it.’’ 


II 


There are many others who give to Christ only 
the fag-ends of their physical and intellectual 
strength. A man uses up his physical strength in 
his ambition to get on in business or professional 
life, or to succeed in some honorable position for 
which he struggles, and he makes that an excuse 
for giving the fag-ends of his powers to the spirit- 
ual work of the church of God. A man works so 
hard through the week that he thinks it a legiti- 
mate excuse to make to his pastor for staying 
away from prayer-meeting, or remaining at home 
from the Sunday-evening service. My brother, as 
God’s messenger let me ask you, in all frankness, 
what right you have to take God’s time for your 
business so that you are too tired for more than 
one service on Sunday, and feel compelled to stay 
away from the prayer-meeting at the middle of the 
week. Why should you give God the leavings, the 
twigs, the chips, the fag-ends of all that tree of 
physical strength and power which he has bestowed 
upon you? The more you think of it the worse it 
will look. The more you study it out and investi- 


THE FAG-ENDS OF THE TREE OF LIFE 207 


gate it the more ashamed you will be that you ever 
used such an excuse or ever allowed it to be neces- 
sary to use such an one. Where do you get your 
strength? Who gives it to you? Your breath is in 
God’s hand. He alone has power to guarantee you 
strength and life. He breathes upon you, and you 
sicken and die, or at his smile you may be filled 
with vigor and power. Why, then, will ye rob 
God? Why will you give all your force and the 
fiower of your strength and vigor to your business 
or social or political life, and bring only the worn- 
out fag-ends to the development of your soul, to 
the spiritual exaltation of your own life, and the 
uplifting of humanity in your city? My friends, 
the way to great triumph, the way to true success 
lies along the line of humble, reverent, loving serv- 
ice of God and blest fellowship with God. Let us 
never forget that supreme law written on all hu- 
man life, given by the Master, ‘‘ Whoso loseth his 
life for my sake shall find it.’’ 


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OF THE DWARF 


THE LIMITATIONS OF 
THE DWARF 


“A dwarf . . ._ shall not come nigh to offer the 
bread of his God.”—Leviticus: 20-21. 
NDER the old Hebrew priesthood the dwarf, 
while permitted to partake of the holy bread, 
was restrained from offering it to others. He was 
not to blame for being a dwarf, but only men with- 
out blemish, and who had the full measure of manly 
power, were permitted to exercise the functions of 
that holy office. There is in this significant fact the 
suggestion of a great theme. Every department of 
human life is full of illustration. The saddest limi- 
tation of poverty to any true man is that he cannot | 
~bestow charity on the poor. It is the bitterest sor-. 
row of weakness that a man cannot render aid to_/ 


the helpless. And in the higher realm the sorest . : 


pang that a man can know is that he is so dwarfed | 
in his spiritual nature that he cannot offer the 
bread of his God to his fellows. The physical 
dwarf is very often, and indeed usually, without 
personal blame. It is his misfortune, which may 
have come to him by inheritance, or by accident. 


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212 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS — 


But the spiritual dwarf, while the conduct of 
others may have contributed to his lamentable con- 
dition, is in the last analysis personally responsible, 
for the power to emerge from such a condition is 
always within his reach. 

Our theme ought to have a helpful message for 
all men and women who desire to live a good life, 
a life not only harmless before God, but one full 
of benediction and blessing to their time, but who 
yet find themselves continually handicapped in 
efforts to be helpful to those about them by a sense 
of spiritual poverty and weakness. I wish to speak 
with all my heart, and I crave divine aid to speak, 
to those of you who in your better hours have 
dreams of righteousness which you never realize, 
and visions of service which you never perform, 
and which it may be you are never roused to suffi- 
cient courage to seriously attempt to perform. I 
wish to speak to you who have high appreciation 
of people who seem to you to be spiritual geniuses 
because there goes forth constantly from their rare 
souls the bread of God to others, yet when you 
attempt to offer it your hands seem empty, and 
hungry souls starve in your very presence. Now 
where can we find the secret of this failure on the 
part of many people who have good desires, and 
who are often conscious of a longing to be a bless- 


rite. srgarierions OF THE DWARF 213 


Gare is the world? The ee must be in a lack of , 
the presence of God known and felt in the heart 
and life. When we study the great men who have 
lived in the different epochs of the world, who have 
been almoners of God’s bread to their fellows, men 
like David, and Wesley, and Bunyan, and John 
Knox, we are convinced that this is true. 

Take up the Psalms anywhere and read a hun- 
dred words and you will learn the secret of David’s 
power over the men of his time. God was with 
David. Whether he wandered in the wilderness, 
or hid in a cave on the mountain side, or went forth 
to battle, or led the song in the temple service, God 
was present with him. To David the world was 
full of God. The eagle soaring in the sky made 
him think of the wings of God fiying to his help. 
The mountain cavern was but a type of his hiding- 
place in God’s heart. No wonder that this man, to 
whom every tree, and flower, and bird, and cloud, 
and mountain crag spoke of God, was fitted to offer 
the bread of God to the world of his time. 

John Bunyan could write ‘‘Pilgrim’s Progress’’ 
because he had lived the life himself. He could 
write of angels, for they had ministered to him. He 
if could make the Hill Difficulty seem possible to 
human feet because God had led him step by step 
to the summit. He could paint pictures of deliver- 


214 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


ance from. Doubting Castle, and from the lions by 
the way, because God had delivered him. The 
dungeon might be small and gloomy, but the pres- 
ence of God who had redeemed him, and who 
abode in his heart, made that jail more splendid 
than the palace of the king who had imprisoned 
him. Bunyan is still feeding the bread of God to 
the world in nearly all languages, because God was 
so continually present in his own heart and life. 
John Wesley was able to quicken the religious 
life of every church in the world, and to start into 
being a new army of Christians which to-day has 
millions of adherents, and is preaching the gospel 
to the ends of the earth, because God was with 
him more evidently than with any other man on 
the earth in his day. Other men were more elo- 
quent, other men were as scholarly, other men had 
more splendid physical presence, but no man of 
his age so made men feel that the Almighty God 
dwelt in frail human flesh to offer the bread of 
life to hungry souls. Once two boys filled their 
pockets full of stones, and climbed up into the 
loft of a house where Wesley was to preach, intend- 
ing to stone him when he had got going well. But 
when the good man began to pray a wonderful awe 
fell over all who heard him, and the larger of the 
two boys said to the other, ‘‘He is not a man! I 


THE LIMITATIONS OF THE DWARF 215 


tell you, he is not a man!’’ And so those boys lay 
there in astonishment with a feeling that they were 
in the presence of God. And so absorbed were 
they with this impression that when the meeting 
was over they slipt down to the gate where 
his horse was tied, and as Wesley came along talk- 
ing with some of the people, the smaller of the boys 
erept up beside him and pinched his leg through 
his trousers, and cried out loud, ‘‘He is a man! 
I tell you, he is a man!’’ Wesley looked down at 
the boy with a face lighted up with holy kindness, 
and putting his hand on the boy’s head said, ‘‘God 
bless you, my lad, and make you a preacher of his 
word.’’ The boy never got out from under the 
spell of that hand, that spirit, and that blessing, 
and became one of the most powerful of Wesley’s 
preachers. 

But I fear these great names often largely fail 
in their influence with us. They fail not only be- 
cause of oft reference, but because in the grandeur 
of the distance they seem lifted so high above us 
that we somehow feel that they are not real ex- 
amples for men and women of common quality like 
our own. But, my friends, our own day, the age 
in which we live, is full of illustrations among the 
common people which prove to us the same great 
truth, that the soul may be enlarged, that the per- 


t 


i 


216 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


sonality of men and women bred in the commonest 
walks of life may be so transformed and exalted 
by the presence of God that they may become the 
bread-givers of God to their fellows. The Hebrew 
priest that was born a dwarf, or who had been 
dwarfed by accident or by cruel treatment in 
childhood, could never become anything else. No 
penitence, no care, no culture could ever give him 
a broad shoulders, the splendid presence, and the 
noble personality of the full-grown and mature 


‘\manhood necessary for his office. But God is more 
\. gracious in spiritual things, or rather the spirit is 


not subject to the limitations of the flesh, and the 
man who has been dwarfed by poverty, or afflic- 
tion, or harsh treatment, into narrowness of vision 
and experience, may through devotion and self- 
surrender to God emerge out-of the dwarfed man- 
hood he now knows into the large and splendid per- 
sonality which shall give him the privilege of offer- 
ing the bread of God to humanity. In illustrating 
this fact one is only embarrassed by the wealth of © 
resources. 

Forty years ago a young medical student with- 
out money or friends was pursuing his course of 
studies in a London hospital, trying to fit himself 
to go as a medical missionary to China. There was 
nothing uncommon about him in any way. His 


THE LIMITATIONS OF THE DWARF 217 


father was a German, his mother was an English 
woman, and he himself had been born in Ireland. 
As he was emerging into manhood the Spirit of God 
got hold of him, and he was happily converted. He 
became so intensely Christian that he longed to be 
of service in making Christ known to the most 
neglected, and so he came to London to fit himself 
for that work. “is heart was burning with love 
to God. He was fired with a desire to help every- 
body, and so he soon came to know of the frightful 
conditions of multitudes of homeless children in 
London. He began by helping one boy who had 
no home, and soon his hands were full of them. He 
first used a donkey stable for a refuge. But his 
heart was on fire, and God was with him and found 
him friends. His own heavenly magnetism in- 
spired everybody who came in contact with him, 
and before long Thomas John Barnardo, ‘‘The 
Father of Nobody’s Children,’? became known 
throughout the whole world. Great institutions, 
which not only served as a refuge but as schools of . 
preparation, accommodating thousands of boys and 
girls, grew up under his hand. Tens of thousands 
of hopeless, outcast youths, rescued by this man, 
educated and reclaimed, were sent out into all 
lands where English power has gone, and ninety- 
eight per cent. of them turned out well. Now 


218 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


the wonderful thing about Barnardo, that which 
everybody noted who came into touch with him, 
was that he was a man of God. The spirit of love 
and faith, the habit of prayer, an element of inten- 
sity and quiet self-sacrifice, of joy and radiance 
and hope, pervaded his work and revealed the con- 
tact and communion he ever had with the per- 
petual source of supply and strength. Prayer to 
God was his secret. An atmosphere of heavenly 
warmth and light shone forth from the man and 
his work. 

Let us turn now to a very different illustration. 
The first year after I went to Boston I found that 
center of culture wonderfully stirred by the death 
of a woman named Jennie Collins. Naturally I 
looked into the matter. I found that Jennie Col- 
lins was born in poverty and struggled with it for 
more than half of her life to win in the shops of 
Boston her daily bread. Finally she succeeded in 
getting a little money ahead and determined to 
try to fulfil her long-cherished dream of assist- 
ing her less fortunate fellow workers. So it was 
that ‘‘Boffin’s Bower’’ came into existence, and 
over this swarming hive of needy girls and women 
Jennie Collins was undisputed queen for years. 
If ever there was a Christlike soul it was that of 
Jennie Collins. All a woman needed in order to win 


THE LIMITATIONS OF THE DWARF 219 


Jennie Collins for a friend was to be in need and 
to be friendless. God was present in every hour of 
her life. As the years went on, hundreds and 
thousands of women who afterward became true 
wives and mothers were saved on the ragged edge 
of the precipice by Jennie Collins. They called 
her the ‘‘Queen of Boffin’s Bower.’’ Sometimes 
her scepter was a bowl of gruel, sometimes a tem- 
porary loan, sometimes needed clothing; again it 
was only a kind word, the clasp of a warm, 
womanly hand, or a cheery smile that rebuked all 
despairing circumstances. "Whatever was needed 
—egruel, smiles, tearful sympathy, or money—with 
rare insight into woman’s nature Jennie Collins 
found out and set herself to provide. 

Especially in the winter the amount of work 
performed by her was marvelous. Her rooms at 
that season were crowded with women of all 
nationalities, out of work, sick, in disgrace, in de- 
spair, none were turned away. She had the heart 
of Boston. That was her great power. Many 
people could not speak of her without tears. They 
felt God was with her. 

During all her experience with the poor, the 
helpless and ofttimes the vicious, she retained 
the same faith in humanity, and the same long- 
suffering patience for it that God shows. If any, 


220 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


one had seen this shop girl at thirty years of age 
and estimated her power to bless the women of 
Boston, he would have said, ‘‘She is a dwarf.’ 
But ten or twenty years later if he had watched 
her ministrations and known the streams of bless- 
ings that issued from her Christlike heart and 
gracious life he would have said, ‘‘She is a queenly 
woman.’’ What was it? It was a woman sur- 
rendered to God. It was heaven in a woman’s 
heart. It was the presence of God in a woman’s 
soul and life. 

On July 9, 1884, with great civic honor that 
stirred the city from end to end, a statue was un- 
veiled in the city of New Orleans. It represents 
Margaret Haughery. It is not idealized, but shows 
a broad plain woman with the common dress she 
wore, an arm encircling an orphan. Who was 
this woman, that a square in a great city should be 
named after her, and a statue of her set up among 
the great of earth? She was a plain Irish Catho- 
lic girl, who became a nurse. Later she was mar- 
ried, and during the first year of her wedded life 
her husband died and left her a widow. As she 
must support herself, she managed a dairy in an 
orphan asylum for awhile, and then she opened a 
little eating-house of her own. Now this young 
Irish woman, in some way, I know not how, had 


THE LIMITATIONS OF THE DWARF 221 


come into wonderful nearness to God. Something 
of the pain and agony of Jesus Christ for the poor 
and the suffering had come to bear upon this 
woman’s heart. She came to know the fellowship 
of Christ’s sufferings and her heart longed to suc- 
cor the neglected children about her. She did not 
wait until she got rich, but she opened a little eat- 
ing-house, and began to help as much as she could 
the needy within her reach. Looking about for 
opportunities she saw that the deck-hands along 
the river front were being swindled out of their 
money, and were stupefying themselves with drink, 
and then lay about boozing-dens till they were 
pushed out. So she opened a little shop where they 
could have wholesome food and drink cheaper than 
at the saloon. And so she went on. She never 
started into any enterprise to make money without 
a benevolent motive at the back. In everything 
she went into partnership with God. She was 
trying to do the Lord’s work. It is wonderful 
how a thing goes when God is your partner. Mar- 
garet prospered. Her wagons covered the city. 
She might easily have died a millionaire. But 
she had no such poor purpose as that. Her heart 
went out to the orphans. She had been one her- 
self. She knew what it was to be left without 
father or mother, and to get no education, not 


222 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


even enough to read. In the course of her life this 
Irish girl either founded or largely aided eleven 
orphan asylums—Catholic and Protestant, black 
and white, alike. 

In February, 1882, this good woman died. 
Never was there such a funeral in Louisiana. As 
far as I know she is the only woman in America 
who was ever buried with public honors. The 
Governor and ex-Governors of the State were 
among the pall-bearers. Delegations from her 
eleven orphan asylums attended the burial. The 
New Orleans Fire Department was in the proces- 
sion. The bells all over the city tolled as the cor- 
tege moved along the streets. When it reached 
the Chamber of Commerce an unheard-of thing 
happened. The members marched down to the 
sidewalk and stood reverently with uncovered 
heads, and many of those strong business men with 
faces wet with tears, while the body of Margaret 
was carried past them to its rest. They built her 
a monument from contributions which poured 
forth from all classes, from newsboys to bankers. 


“And she died; and so the people set 

Amid their heroes, with a proud consent, 

This simple woman-crownéd monument, 

And carved thereon the one word,—‘Margaret.’” 
What was the secret of Margaret’s life? It was 


the presence of God with her. 


THE LIMITATIONS OF THE DWARF = 223 


A little while ago a man died in Indianapolis 
who was known popularly as ‘‘Uncle Billy Jack- 
son.’’ He had lived in Indianapolis since 1840. 
When Henry Ward Beecher, in his young man- 
hood, was pastor there and conducted a great re- 
vival of religion, young William Jackson was con- 
verted to God. It was a conversion which carried 
his whole heart and nature with it. He consecrated 
himself completely to the service of God. He be- 
came a railroad man, and from 1853 on to the 
time of his death in 1900 he was continuously in 
the service of the Union Railway Company. He 
had great opportunities to make money, but he saw 
the evil effects of money-making upon so many 
people that he early decided not to take the risk 
for himself, but instead he gave his life constantly, 
every day for seventy years, for he lived to be 
ninety-one, to doing Christlike deeds in the service 
of men and women and children around him. He 
never married, but lavished his holy love and de- 
votion on every hand. All men were his brethren; 
and all little folks were his children. For a num- 
ber of years he lived among the very poor in the 
simplest and plainest way, that ke might get closer 
to them. His heart and mind were so in harmony 
with God that a singular magnetism of kindness 
shone from his eyes and reflected from his counte- 


224 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


nance. He was no doubt unconscious that his love 
had broadened to that rare and beautiful degree 
exemplified by the description of the Master, that 
he had ‘‘compassion on the multitude.’’ The rich 
and the poor of Indianapolis loved him alike. He 
had a great Sunday-school class of poor boys, and 
after he was eighty-three years of age took them 
at his own expense in detachments to the World’s 
Fair, spending nights of travel and days of hard 
walking that they might have the privilege of 
seeing the great exhibition. And that is only a 
suggestion of what this man was doing for nearly 
three-quarters of a century. His whole life went 
out to others. When he died, all Indianapolis 
mourned. The city stood still at his funeral. The 
daily newspapers had columns of editorials of 
eulogy about him, and these secular editors, every 
one of them, confest that the secret of his life 
was that he was God’s man, that the presence of 
God was in him. [I saw a friend a little while ago, 
who told me that a year or so before William Jack- 
son’s death he spent several days with him, and 
traveled about with him in the cars, and said he: 
“‘T did not feel as when I am with other men. It 
seemed to me I could feel his holiness. There was 
something so saintly, something so convincing of 
the presence of God in his very countenance, and 


THE LIMITATIONS OF THE DWARF 225 


in his conversation, that I felt it all the while.”’ 
There was the secret. His soul and his life were 
enlarged by the presence of God until he could 
feed the bread of life alike to the rich and to the 
poor of his city. 

My friends, I have piled these illustrations, one 
upon another, that they might stir our hearts to 
this great truth. We do not need to be weak and 
powerless. We need not go along the way of life 
spiritual dwarfs. God is no respecter of persons. 
He is seeking for men and women to offer the 
bread of life to hungry souls. All that is needed 
is that we should surrender ourselves to him for 
the highest and holiest service. What folly that 
for a few paltry dollars, or for a few years of 
sensual pleasure, or a few shouts of applause from 
unthinking crowds, we should miss the building up 
of soul and character into those splendid propor- 
tions that shall fit us for divine usefulness. Oh, 
that we may see with clear eyes the relative values 
of spiritual and temporal things! How clearly 
James Russell Lowell characterizes these values in 
his picture of ‘‘St. Michael the Weigher.’’ There, 
says Lowell: 


“Stood the tall Archangel weighing 
All man’s dreaming, doing, saying, 
All the failure and the pain, 

All the triumph and the gain, 


226 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


In the unimagined years, 

Full of hopes, more full of tears 
Since old Adam’s hopeless eyes 
Backward searched for Paradise, 
And, instead, the flame-blade saw 
Of inexorable Law. 


“Waking, I beheld him there, 
With his fire-gold, flickering hair, 
In his blinding armor stand, 

And the scales were in his hand: 
Mighty were they, and full well 
They could poise both heaven and hell, 
‘Angel,’ asked I, humbly, then, 
‘Weighest thou the souls of men? 
That thine office is, I know.’ 
‘Nay,’ he answered me, ‘not so: 
But I weigh the hope of Man 
Since the power of choice began, 
In the world, of good or ill’ 
Then I waited and was still. 


“In one scale I saw him place 

All the glories of our race, 
Cups that lit Belshazzar’s feast, 
Gems, the lightning of the East, 
Kublai’s scepter, Cesar’s sword, 
Many a poet’s golden word, 
Many a skill of science, vain 

To make men as gods again. 


“Tn the other scale he threw 
Things regardless, outcast, few, 
Martyr-ash, arena sand, 

Beechen cups of men whose need 
Fasted that the poor might feed, 


THE LIMITATIONS OF THE DWARF 227 


Disillusions and despairs 
Of young saints with grief-grayed hairs, 
Broken hearts that broke for Man. 


“Marvel through my pulses ran 
Seeing then the beam divine 
Swiftly on this hand decline, 

While Earth’s splendor and renowr, 
Mounted light as thistle-down.” 


THE CHRISTIAN’S HIDDEN 
SOURCES OF DELIGHT 


THE CHRISTIAN’S HIDDEN 
SOURCES OF DELIGHT 


“In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy com- 
forts delight my soul.”—Psalm XCIV: 19. 
WAS once in company with a friend fishing in a 
large stream in the Northwest, when as we were 
working down the river we came unexpectedly on 
a tributary so deep and strong of current that 
we could not cross it. We were amazed, because 
as we gazed up its course we looked less than a 
mile away to a solid wall of hills with no cafion 
through which it might have come, and yet judging 
from its size one would suppose it needed forty 
or fifty miles to have gathered so much water into 
its bosom. Our curiosity awakened, we decided to 
follow up the stream and find from whence it came. 
We followed it for perhaps three-quarters of a 
mile, till we came to the hills and saw where it 
sprang full-born from the earth. Twenty feet 
from the source it was too deep for a man to wade, 
and plunged away across the valley to the river. 
I never shall forget the impression that it made 
upon me. Back in the subterranean caverns of 


231 


232 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


the mountains somewhere there was a mighty reser- 
voir, which, seeking an outlet for the water from 
the melting snow above on the higher mountains, 
was ever forcing its way out through this stream to 
the sea. From the multitude of the waters hidden 
away in the crevices of the great rocks this joyous 
stream had its continual supply. No drought 
affected it. Its sources were drawn from the great 
secret reservoirs of the hills. 

This utterance. of David reminds me of that 
stream. This chapter is full of suggestion of the 
trials and hardships which beset the life of the 
Psalmist. Indeed, the whole Psalm is a ery for 
help against the wicked and cruel treatment of the 
oppressor; but in the midst of it David gives us 
the secret of his greatness and the immortal work 
which he accomplished when he declares that not- 
withstanding all the machinations of powerful and 
wicked foes, ‘‘In the multitude of my thoughts 
within me thy comforts delight my soul.’’ 

Our thoughts form the hidden sources of our 
lives, whether for good or for evil. Caroline But- 
terfield, in a beautiful poem entitled ‘‘Thought 
Wings,’’ pictures this very clearly when she sings: 

“Strange things are thought-wings, 
Fleet as a ray of light, 


Nay, fleeter far— 
For they reach the star 


THE CHRISTIAN’S HIDDEN SOURCES 233 


That is far beyond the sight, 
And are back again 
To the dusty plain, 

Swift as a keen delight. 


* * * * * * * 


“Sad things are thought-wings, 
Drooping with taint of sin, 
Heavy with pain 
From scar and stain, 
Where wrong has entered in 
And marred with crime 
The soul sublime, 
The spring of life within. 


“Fierce things are thought-wings, 
Fierce as a vulture’s beak 
To rend and tear 
With wild despair 
Who gaping vices seek. 
Shame’s nameless stain 
And gnawing pain 
Defile their victim’s cheek. 


“Free things are thought-wings, 
Free as the eagle’s breast. 
On strong brave will 
There waiting still 
The fleet thoughts seek rest; 
The good and true 
The lofty too 
Bear men to the Isles of the Blest.” 


I am sure it cannot but be profitable for us to 
search out these thoughts that gave David peren- 


234 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


nial joy. I remember once reading of two simple 
men who were standing by one of Stephenson’s 
locomotives in the early days of the steam engine. 
And as these men stood by the engine, full of 
curiosity and wonder, one of the men said to the 
other, ‘‘Mate, she’ll never stir.’” When the engine 
moved, the man said, ‘‘Mate, she’ll never stop.’’ 
Finally he said, ‘‘ Mate, I am going to get the secret 
of what makes her go.’’ Of course, for the loco- 
motive, in order that she may go, there must first 
be fire, but there must also be the two rails lying 
parallel along the track. I am sure it will be good 
for us if we can find the track along which ran 
David’s thoughts which gave him such great power 
and such sources of delight that his wonderful 
career was possible. 


I 

The first of these thoughts of David he makes 
very clear to us in this Psalm. It was the thought 
of an immanent God in the world, one who hears 
and sees and eares. ‘‘He that planted the ear, 
shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall 
he not see?’’ Here is the starting point of David’s 
hidden source of joy. God is in his world. He 
made it and he rules it. Here is the source of 
courage that will never grow weary. 


THE CHRISTIAN’S HIDDEN SOURCES 235 


The recent death of one of the first of the mis- 
sionaries who went to the Sandwich Islands has 
recalled the work of civilization which has been 
wrought there. One of the most picturesque inci- 
dents connected with the overthrow of idolatry in 
Hawaii was the defiance of the voleano Pele by 
the Princess Kapiolani. Pele was the most dreaded 
deity of the Sandwich Islands, a goddess supposed 
to be of great and terrible power who resided in the 
crater of the voleano of Kilauea. Superstition in 
regard to this revengeful spirit who dwelt in the 
fiery seething pit was hard to dislodge from the 
savage mind. 

When Princess Kapiolani became a Christian, 
and had enshrined in her heart this wonderful 
thought of God which filled the soul of David with 
delight, she set out on a journey one hundred miles, 
most of the way on foot, to the crater of Kilauea. 
The missionaries at Hilo, twenty-five miles from 
the voleano, heard of her pilgrimage, and one of 
them who had no shoes walked barefoot over the 
stony hills to meet her at the mountain. 

The Princess was much affected by this meeting 
with the missionary. The two, watched by a com- 
pany of about eighty natives, descended from the 
rim of the crater to what was known as the “‘ Black 
Rock.’? There, in full view of the terrific pan- 


236 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


orama, Kapiolani gave her great testimony. She 
cried aloud, ‘‘Jehovah is my God. He kindled 
these fires. I fear not Pele. If I perish from the 
anger of Pele, you may fear the power of Pele. If 
I do not perish, all the gods of Hawaii are vain.”’ 
She then sang a hymn of Christian praise, and 
returned to the wondering, fearful company un- 
scathed.. In those few moments she had given the 
death-blow to the remaining idolatry in the Sand- 
wich Islands. In the multitude of her thoughts of 
God she had found a great source of delight, a 
source which is open to every one of us. 


II 

Another thought that was a constant source of 
delight to David was the conviction that God was 
the defender of those who trusted him. He cries 
out in this Psalm, ‘‘The Lord will not east off his 
people, neither will he forsake his inheritance. But 
judgment shall return unto righteousness: And 
all the upright in heart shall follow it.’? And in 
another one of his great Psalms, having this same 
thought in mind, David says, ‘‘The Lord shall 
keep thee from all evil; he shall keep thy soul.’’ 
The Rev. Perey Ainsworth, commenting on this 
Psalm, says that this is a promise that can fold us 
in divine comfort and peace, and can help us to 


THE CHRISTIAN’S HIDDEN SOURCES 237 


interpret every coil of difficulty and every hour 
of pain. But if we are going to get the comfort we 
ought to get from these great words we must think 
about the soul as God thinks of it. We live in a 
world where souls are cheap. They are bought and 
sold in the market every day. Is it not very 
strange that the only thing many people are not 
afraid of losing is the one thing that is really 
worth anything to them—their souls? Sometimes 
the lusts of the world drag down our heart’s desire, 
and we have to confess with shame to epochs in our 
experience when we have not been concerned with 
what became of our souls so long as the desire of 
the hour was satisfied. God will keep the soul of 
the man who will do his bidding and set his heart 
upon the noblest and highest living. The man who 
gets ‘‘the best of the bargain’’ is always the man 
who is most honest, for the most precious thing 
that a man stands to win or lose in any deal is the 
cleanness of his soul. The man who gets the best 
of the argument is always the man who is most 
truthful, for a quiet conscience is better than a 
silenced opponent. The man who gets the best 
of life is the man who keeps the honor of his soul, 
for has not Jesus said, ‘‘What shall it profit a 
man if he gain the whole world and lose his 
own soul?’’ 


238 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


III 


Another thought that gave David great delight 
was his discovery that much of the sorrow and trial 
which he experienced was not punishment, but 
chastening and discipline. In his joy of this faith 
he exclaims, ‘‘Blest is the man whom thou 
chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy 
law.’’ This reminds us of what Paul says in his 
letter to the Hebrews, ‘‘Whom the Lord loveth he 
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he re- 
ceiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with 
you as with sons; for what son is he whom the 
father chasteneth not? . . . Now no chastening 
for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: 
nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable 
fruit of righteousness unto them which are exer- 
cised thereby.’’ David had got hold of this great 
thought of God’s chastening love, and it was a 
source of delight to him; and it cannot help but be 
a source of perpetual delight to us if we will treas- 
ure this thought in our hearts and keep it to live by 
day by day. Mr. Beecher once used this illustra- 
tion. He said when a great organ was built the 
lead and the zine did not know what the men were 
about when they were melting them, and making 
them into pipes, and when the work was distributed 
through the different shops, among different hands. 


a, 


THE CHRISTIAN’S HIDDEN SOURCES 239 


And when the various stops were but partly com- 
pleted if you had tried them in the factory you 
would have run out with your fingers in your 
ears, and cried, ‘‘Lord, deliver me from that sort 
of music!’’ With all the different parts of the 
organ separately made, unconnected, nobody can 
tell what is coming except an experienced work- 
man; but by and by, little by little, the frame is 
erected, the stops are all arranged and in connec- 
tion with the wind-chest, and now that it is an 
organic whole every part plays into every other 
part. As a whole it is magnificent; but the sepa- 
rate stops were poor and weak and unsatisfactory. 
God makes stops on earth, but he builds the organ 
in heaven; and many a man will never know until 
he comes there what was the reason of that provi- 
dence by which he was trained and fitted to be a 
part of that great band of music in the heavenly 
home. It takes all the bitterness out of life and 
fills all our sorrows with pathos and tenderness if 
we can keep this thought of God’s fatherly care 
and love uppermost in our minds. A woman who 
was very troubled, hurrying through the town to 
a railway station with an aching heart, overtook 
two little mites of children, happy and cheerful 
looking, who were talking over their school-lessons. 
As she came up to them she heard one child say to 


240 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


the other with the ring of a child’s loving pride, 
“‘‘Father teaches me.’’ And then came the answer 
from the other child, ‘‘ How nice to have a father to 
teach you,’’ with a certain emphasis which showed 
that she knew something, small tho she was, of 
what a father’s love and teaching should mean. 
The woman’s face brightened as she heard it, and 
she turned with a grateful smile to the two little 
ones, pausing to look at them for a minute before 
she went hurrying on again. And as she went her 
face kept its brighter look, her heart lost its bitter- 
ness, because this thought was singing in her soul, 
‘‘Surely, many beside that little child can say, 
‘My Father teaches me.’ ”’ 


IV 

Another thought that gave David delight in his 
hour of darkness, so far as his outward cireum- 
stances were concerned, was the thought which he 
cherished that in the time of great emergency he 
could depend upon God’s mercy. In connection 
with our text he says, ‘‘ Unless the Lord had been 
my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence. 
When I said, My foot slippeth; thy merey, O Lord, 
held me up. In the multitude of my thoughts 
within me thy comforts delight my soul.’’ So we 
may be sure that this was one of the thoughts that 
was forever a hidden source of delight to David. 


‘ot 


THE CHRISTIAN’S HIDDEN SOURCES 241 


His heart rejoiced in the mercy of the God who 
comes to the rescue of the man in peril, whose feet 
have slipt and will go to disaster without help. 
It is the glory of our Christianity that it has a 
word about mercy to the man whose feet have 
slipt. 

Samuel Chadwick, the English preacher, tells 
how he was once holding a series of meetings in 
Leeds, England, and a number of atheists and 
agnostics, who were also socialists and reformers 
in their way, sent up to him a note before he be- 
gan to preach. ‘‘Don’t preach us a sermon,’’ they 
said; ‘‘we would like you to tell us frankly and 
simply and in a straightforward, unconventional 
way, why you believe in Jesus Christ.’’ He did so, 
and afterward met with these men in another room 
to discuss the matter. Quite a number of them 
came, and they sat there and talked until two 
o’clock in the morning. When they rose to go he 
turned to the leader of the group and said, ‘‘Let 
me ask you one question. You have propounded 
a philosophy for a cult. In the things you are 
hoping for you assume the existence of a certain 
quality of humanity. You have said nothing about 
those who do not reach that standard. You know 
that in this city, by the thousands, there are men 
who have lost their manhood, whose tastes are de- 


242 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


praved, whose wills are destroyed, the victims of 
passion, the slaves of lusts, the despair of civiliza- 
tion. What will you do with these?’’ A eynical 
smile lighted up the agnostic’s face. ‘‘Oh,’’ he 
said, ‘‘I would make you a present of that lot.’’ 
Then more seriously he added: ‘‘I am free to con- 
fess that if there is any hope for such men any- 
where it is in the Christ you preach.’’ Every re- 
ligion must be judged by its power to heal the 
crippled and save the lost. A religion that has 
no Savior in it is useless for this world. David 
found in the mercy of God a religion that took him 
out of the mire and the clay and set his feet upon 
a rock, and established his goings, and inspired a 
new song in his heart and on his lips, even a 
song of praise unto God. This thought of God’s 
infinite mercy and love to the sinning soul is a 
source of continual comfort and delight. The 
mercy and the love of God melt the hard 
heart, take the bitterness out of the soul, and 
inspire our faith and our courage. David in 
another place has borne testimony that it was the 
gentleness of God that made him great, and George 
Herbert, in his beautiful little poem entitled ‘‘ Dis- 
cipline,’’ strikes the same note. He sings— 


“Throw away thy rod, 
Throw away thy wrath; 


THE CHRISTIAN’S HIDDEN SOURCES 


O my God, 
Take the gentle path. 


“For my heart’s desire 
Unto thine is bent; 

I aspire 
To a full consent. 


“Not a word or look 
I affect to own, 

But by Book, 
And thy Book alone. 


“Tho I fail, I weep, 
Tho I halt in pace, 
Yet I creep 
To the Throne of Grace. 


“Then let wrath remove; 
Love will do the deed: 
For with love 
Stony hearts will bleed. 


“Love is swift of foot; 

Love’s a man of war, 
And can shoot, 

And can hit from far. 


“Who can ’scape his bow? 
That which wrought on thee, 
Brought thee low, 
Needs must work on me. 


“Throw away thy rod; 
Tho man frailties hath, 
Thou are God: 
Throw away thy wrath.” 


243 


THE SOUNDING 
LINE OF PRAYER 


THE SOUNDING LINE OF 
PRAYER 


“Make thy petition deep.”—Isaiah VII: 11 (Marginal 
rendering). 
S this scripture stands in our authorized ver- 
sion the entire verse reads, ‘‘ Ask thee a sign 
of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, or 
in the height above.’’ But the marginal rendering, 
designing to give a short cut to the direct message, 
is as I first read it, ‘‘ Make thy petition deep.’’ And 
as that expresses perfectly the theme which I wish 
to study with you, we will let it stand as our text. 
This rendering exactly fits the circumstances sur- 
rounding the utterance of the text. Ahaz, the king 
of Judah, was a timid and helpless man. He 
lacked promptitude and courage. His religion was 
of the most formal kind. He looked upon God not 


in a definite loving sense as his own personal . 


Heavenly Father, but as the God of Judah. He did 
not even believe that God was as efficient and 
powerful as the god of Assyria, for he had about 
made up his mind to apply to the king of Assyria, 
and was already mixed up in intrigues with that 


247 


af 


248 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


heathen king, thinking him a more trustworthy 
helper than Jehovah in the difficulties with which 
he was surrounded. Hence, when God told him 
through his prophet Isaiah to ask a token from the 
God of heaven and earth, and to make his petition 
deep, Ahaz responded ‘‘I will not ask,’’ and then 
he adds in a hypocritical canting strain, as tho 
he could deceive God, ‘‘Neither will I tempt the 
Lord.’’ The fact was that Ahaz was irreligious 
and worldly and had given himself over to intrigue 
with these people who were the enemies of God. He 
did not want to earnestly and truly pray for a 
token from heaven. He did not want a token 
from heaven. He was not willing to pay the price 
for it. He wanted to go his own way and he 
feared that if he sought an answer from God it 
would only bring to light his own sins, and make 
it impossible for him to carry on his intrigue with 
the king of Assyria. In short, Ahaz was a coward, 
and, as Emerson says, ‘‘God never gives visions to 
cowards.’’ He does not because he cannot. Cowards 
close the door, they pull down the shades on the 
windows of vision and shut God out of their lives. 
The light of heaven cannot enter the soul when a 
man is timid and cowardly, and all the entrances 
to his higher life are blocked. 

Perhaps it has never occurred to you that it 


THE SOUNDING LINE OF PRAYER 249 


takes great courage to pray. If it has not it is be- 
cause you have not studied the matter very deeply. 
Oh, I know, any coward can say his prayers, and 
many cowards do say them with the regularity of 
a parrot; but to really pray, with that depth of 


petition that longs for the coming of God into the’ 


heart and soul, and into the mastery of the life, 
such a prayer takes courage. Look back over the 
roll of the men who have been famous for their 
prayers and you will notice that they were all as 
famous for their bravery. It was no mere acci- 
dent that Havelock’s prayer-meetings among his 
soldiers during the Indian mutiny produced the 
men that were always called upon to lead the for- 
lorn hope. T+-was not a happy accident only that 
Chinese Gordon’s white handkerchief outside his 


tent, which meant that he was at prayer with God, ~ , 


was a sign of the hero that the whole world knew 
him to be. Here, then, let us find our theme. Let 


us study our own duty and privilege in regard to 7” 


prayer to God. 


“4 . { hat Wile ce ht.) 4 
Tg v , 
soto ft Anpythty. = 


“We should surely find suggested in our theme 
that it is our r duty as well a as our privilege to make 


\ ia A 


our prayers as is deep as as our needs. ‘And when we 
eg 


come to that point we cannot deal with it in whole- 


=< 


250 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


sale, for each one of us has our own peculiar and 

personal relation to God, and our own personal 

needs, which we should bring to God in earnest 

ae sincere prayer. 

“1, There are some of you who have never known 

Christ as your personal “Savior. That you have 
sinned” against God; ‘and that sin unforgiven rests 


Ne upon your conscience, and lurks as poison in the 


“af « depths of your heart, you are conscious of when- 

‘sever you permit yourself to have a thoughtful 
,(moment. Your need is as deep as that sin, and 

va ae 


your ery to to God “should. have the depth of y 
- great necessity for deliverance. (It is a terrible « 
thing to live day after day knowing that you are a 
sinner against God in whose hand your a is, 
and yet doing nothing to bring forgiveness, Some 
poet sings: Me 


w CoA 
“Weep not for broad lands lost; “ ie 


Weep not for fair hopes crossed; hi Cae 1g 


Weep not when limbs wax old; 


Weep not when friends grow cold; A wre 


Weep not that death must part ~ “ 
Thine and the best-loved heart; ye of 
Yet weep, weep all thou can— | 
Weep, weep, because thou art 

A sin-defiléd man.” * 


y/ Conscious of your sin, why do you not pray with 
a petition so deep and strong that it would revolu- 


oD Do | 
(1 


j 


* 


ad 


oo ak 


THE SOUNDING LINE OF PRAYER 251 


tionize your life? Is it not that, like Ahaz, there is 
some timidity or cowardice which holds you back 
from such a prayer? That as yet you are not will- 
ing to have that prayer answered? The spell of 
Christ, I am sure, has been over your spirit again 
and again. You have heard his knock at the door 


of your heart, and your hand has been almost — . 
raised to turn the key and open the door, and then™ 
you have thought of the demands of Christ, of how? 


he will. claim that your business, political, and 
social life shall be carried on purely, and honestly, 


and righteously. You have thought of certain. © 
things which if Christ were a guest at your table’. x 


you could not practise, and you have turned away 


ee 
pee. i” 


with a sinking heart, and a blush of shame, andl™ "4 ) 


with a new sense of failure and personal deteriora- “ » 


tion you have said, ‘‘I cannot let him in! God 
knows I would like to be a good man, I would like 
to be free from sin, but I cannot pay the price.”’ 
And so it was your cowardice that turned back 
heaven from the door of your soul. My friend, I 
call you again to your duty and your privilege, and 
beg of you to make your petition as deep as your 
sins and your need of salvation. 

2. Those of us who are Christians, but are.con- 


scious that we are ‘not as fruitful Christians.as we 


“ought to ‘be, that we are e not t winning souls. to the _ 


- een — 


7 
San i 
Z 


252 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


_banner of Christ, and shrink from.the attempt, or 
dare not make the attempt, or when we do attempt 
‘if find ourselves helpless, ought to be inspired by 
our theme to make our prayers as deep as our need 
of spiritual vitality and power for service. The 


i. great need of the church to-day is for fruitful ~ 


_ Christians. Not only for men and women who 
can keep from swearing and lying and stealing, 
but for Christian men and women who live close 
to God, whose lives are fragrant with the spirit of 
Christ, and in whom spiritual vitality is so mani- 
fest that they charm and conquer sinning men and 
women about them and bring them penitently to 
the Savior. I most heartily agree with Campbell 
Morgan when he says that he is getting a little 
tired of the men who want to win heaven—Oh, 
for the men and women that want to winthe earth 
for God! Oh, for men and women with deep and 
holy passion to have fellowship with Jesus Christ 
in winning souls! 

Now as I speak I am sure that I look into the 
faces of scores and hundreds of Christian men and 
women who are conscious, and sadly conscious, 
that compared with the vital, courageous, and 
whole-hearted Christian life which it is your privi- 
lege to live, the life you really do live is flabby and 
helpless. But when I come with this theme, and 


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hio' drop the sounding line down into the depths of 
your soul, is it not true that you hold back from 


making your petition deep as your needs, because | 


you are not willing to pay the price of having your 
prayer answered? Dr. Alexander MacKenzie said 
not long ago to his congregation that if God should 
answer the prayer which some brother had made 
that morning, in which he had asked, ‘‘God take 
care of the poor,’’ the answer to that prayer 
would come out of that brother’s bank account, 
and would probably cost him five hundred dollars. 
If we are to be God’s men and women we must 
make our prayers as deep as our needs and be will- 
ing to take the risk. We must commit ourselves 
to God’s commandments, and invoke God to work 
his will with us and shine in our obedient hearts. 
Then both the light and the power will come. Be- 
lieve me, spiritual peace and spiritual power can 
never come to us except when we keep close to 


God, so that our prayer is the deep outgoing of the™ 


heart as of friend to friend. Dante-spoke-of the 
duties of men being ranged like a pyramid. When 
you are at the top your purpose is single and your 
conduct is simple, for there is not much room to 
range about. But, as you come down, the sides of 
the pyramid spread, and then you have a broader 
plane. Now if you stand on the top of the pyra- 


254 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


mid, just room enough for God and you, whatever 
labor or pleasure you have, you have there, right in 
God’s presence. Whatever work you have there, 
you are close to the law of God. But you get rest- 
less and uneasy. You think you want a little more 
liberty, and you gradually descend. Now your 
plane widens. You have more things. You are not 
so much held to the duties of a Christian life as 
you used to be. You are more like the world 
around you. You have not those differences that 
separate. Now you are on a broader plane, and the 
widening of the plane has been a separating of 
yourself from God. But as you have gotten away 
from God you have gotten away from peace, you 
have gotten away from spiritual power, and you 
are no longer a fruitful, useful Christian as you 
once were. There is only one way to live a great 
life, vital with the power of God, and that is to 
climb upward. Turn to the other wing of our text, 
which would be, ‘‘make thy petitions high,’’ as 
well as deep. Let the sides of your life, let the 
things you do, lessen. Up and up and up, fewer 
things to do, and more strength to do them. Climb 
upward toward the top of the pyramid, where all 
the pleasure you have, and all the duty you have, 
and all the work you have, and all the life you 
have are in fellowship with God. Will life lose be- 


THE SOUNDING LINE OF PRAYER 255 


cause it becomes narrower? No, indeed. It will be- 
come rich and strong and mighty with the vigor 
of the power of God. Call the roll of the men and 
the women who have added supreme glory to the | 
race, the men and women whose lives have had 
about them the breath of unselfish service, the 
spirit of holiness, the glory of a joy and a gladness 
that neither sorrow, nor persecution, nor failure, 
nor death could dampen, and they have all, no mat- 
ter in what age they lived, or of what race they 
were born, been men and women who lived close 
to God, and whose petitions were as deep as God’s 
willingness to give beauty, and power, and glory to 
his children. 

3. We should make our prayers as deep as the 
needs of the multitudes about us who are unsaved. 
How little we appreciate the need of Christian 
fidelity. We recognize the needs of the drunkard, 
and the gambler, and the lost woman whose shame 
is apparent to the world; but, alas! in the midst of 
our cultivated, and well-to-do, and socially moral 
communities many men and women are living and 
dying in their sins without Christ, who need, be- 
yond words to describe, that their Christian neigh- 
bors should have spiritual vitality and power 
enough to bring to them the message of the gospel. 

A beautiful woman lay on her death-bed in a 


256 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


well-to-do home in one of our cities. A company of 
friends, respectable, intelligent, and well drest, 
stood by her. ‘‘Read me something new,”’ she said, 
impatiently, to her friends who were trying to 
divert her with interesting books. While her sister 
went out to search for ‘‘something new,’’ the nurse, 
a sincere Christian, took out her pocket Bible and 
began to read the Sermon on the Mount. The sick 
woman paid close attention to the end. ‘‘Beauti- 
ful!’’ she said. ‘‘That will create a sensation. Who 
wrote it?’’ 

‘“Why,’’ replied the astonished nurse, ‘‘that is 
the Sermon on the Mount—in the Bible, you 
know.’’ 

‘‘The Bible! anything so good and beautiful as 
that in the Bible?’’ 

“‘Surely ; what else but good did you think could 
be in it?’’ 

‘‘Oh, I don’t know. I have never looked into 
a Bible in my life. My father wouldn’t have one 
in the house.”’ 

‘‘But you have certainly heard the Bible read 
in the church ?”’ 

‘‘T havé never been to church much. Sunday 
was always our holiday. We sometimes went to 
places of amusement, but seldom to church. I never 
thought much about the Bible. I never supposed 


THE SOUNDING LINE OF PRAYER 257 


it contained such beautiful things. I wish I had 
known it before!’’ 

She begged the nurse to read again the prayer 
in the Sermon on the Mount that was so new to 
her—‘‘Our Father, which art in heaven.’’ And 
she died, saying with her last breath: ‘‘I wish I 


had known it before! I wish I had known it » 


before!’’ \ 
Friends, these people are all about you. God 

says that he who winneth these souls is wise, and 

that those who turn many to righteousness shall 


shine as the stars forever and ever. Shall we not . 


make our petitions as deep as the needs of these 
starving souls? Ah, do we understand the value 
of a soul? lta Ad 
“The value of a soul! ,, ,, 
’Neath sin’s encrust *™ 
- Look with Faith’s visioned gaze, then pay thy toll— 
In patient trust— 
Of work and prayer; the slumb’ring seed ‘that eat 
Hopeless to all, save Christ-anointed eyes, 
The sunbeam’s thrust 


May quicken into life, beneath the sod, A. 


As lilies bloom, in the fair fields of God, » 
From out the dust. 2 e fide 


“Measure it by Christ’s love, ee A 


His life, his cross; 


Take angel’s reed, and scales of courts above, “(+ / 


Weigh gold, weigh dross! : 
If from the firmament fell one bright star, “’ 


cmeeenninctie 


a 


258 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


If but one shining planet wandered far, 
How great the loss; 

Yet is the profit of a whole world won 

Not to be measured with one soul undone. 
Gone from its course.” 


II 


We should make our prayers as deep as the 
promises of God and his power to perform. Time 
will not permit me to make a catalog of the 
promises of God which reach to all our needs, and 
cover every longing, and every possible condition 
of the human heart and life. Let me rather eall 
your attention for our comfort and inspiration to 
Paul’s great conclusion. After thinking the whole 
matter over he bursts forth with this triumphant 
exclamation: ‘‘What shall we then say to these 
things! If God be for us, who can be against us? 
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him 
up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely 
give us all things?’’ He who gave his Son for our 
salvation will not fail in anything else we need. 


There is a legend which they tell you _at_Niagara 


Falls. it is said that in olden times..among..the 
Indians it was the custom to offer every year a. 
sacrifice to the great spirit of the. mighty...falls. 
Those children of the forest thought they caught 


glimpses Of the Great Spirit in the mist.that rises 


THE SOUNDING LINE OF PRAYER 259 


and in the marvelous lunar rainbow that is seen, 
when the moon shines, to hover over the edge of 
the falls. The sacrifice sought was the most gentle 
and beautiful girl of the tribe. She was chosen by 
lot. One year the lot fell on the only daughter of 
-a chief, whose wife was dead. He showed no sign 
of surprize or sorrow. But behind this mask of 
stoicism, inwardly, his grief was intense. Life 
without his only child was empty. Moreover, he 
knew that she would be alarmed and horrified at 
the fate that awaited her. The yells and shouts of 
the men might drown her cries and tears. The 
flowers that decked her canoe-coffin were bright, 
but the dizzying depth of the terrible cascade was 
appalling. She gazed about her—her father, where 
is he? What, not one last look, ere she is pushed 
out into the foaming rapids! She has not even a 
paddle to help steer her canoe, and to clear her of 
the projecting rocks. But her father soon comes 
near. Just from beneath some branches of a huge 
tree a canoe shoots out. Her father is in it. He 
smiles, and with terms of endearment cheers the 
affrighted little soul. He gets quite close to her, 
and, holding her hand, sweeps onward himself to 
death with her. Love triumphs, love upheld, love 
joined hands. So God the Father was with Christ 
in our redemption. In this tender legend we have 


Ah 
! 


Aue pa 


260 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


/a faint suggestion of how, if in every time of need 
* we make our petitions deep and earnest, God will 


draw near to us, and reveal himself to us in the 
full and perfect satisfaction of all our needs. 

Dr. R. J. Campbell of the City Temple in Lon- 
don tells how a woman once came to him in great 
anxiety about her boy. She was a proud and not 
Over-wise woman. The preacher suspected that 
the boy had learned much of his folly through her 
weakness; but she loved him with all the intensity 
of a mother’s heart. He was an exile from home, 
had been away a long time, and his father’s heart 
was hard concerning him. If he were to come back, 
she had said to herself many a time, she must be 
there, otherwise his weleome would be harsh. One 
pathetic sentence she uttered which Dr. Campbell 
noted: ‘‘I always knew he must come back, but I 
did not wish him to find things changed when he 
came.’’ What she really meant was that she had 
hoped God would spare her life that she and not a 
sterner soul might meet her son; for if she were 
gone the probabilities that the boy would be 
saved would have been very small. Is not this 
illustrative of the teachings of God’s word con- 
cerning his willingness to answer to our needs? 
While that boy was away from home, and while he 
was picturing to himself the all but impossibility 


THE SOUNDING LINE OF PRAYER 261 


that he should be received at home again with kind- 
ness or mercy or pity, much less with love, the un- 
changing love of a mother-heart was going out to 
him. It is no mere sentiment, that figure: before 
his penitence called to her, love had answered; be- 
fore his desire for home had formed itself into a 
purpose in his heart, his mother’s desire for him 
was reaching him, was ever toward him, and it 
conquered in the end. The prayer, even of a weak 
woman, brought her boy to her side again. She 
had not changed her solicitude for him; when he 
turned toward her he was but responding to that 
desire. How like that is that wonderful promise 
of God in this same book of Isaiah: ‘‘And it 
shall come to pass, that before they call I will 
answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will 
hear.’ : et Sahl Mi i a rtrd 


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CHRIST THE SUPREME 
OBJECT OF HUMAN 
CONSIDERATION 


CHRIST THE SUPREME OBJECT 
OF HUMAN CONSIDERATION 


“Consider Him.”—Hebrews XII: 3. 


UL gives us these words as a key to the solu- 

tion of the problem of a Christian life in the 
midst of the allurements and distractions of this 
present world. Keep your eye on Christ and noth- 
ing shall disturb you. There is a story of a young 
man in the East who was sent one day by his 
teacher through a crowded bazaar with the instruc- 
tions to carry a vessel full of water—full to the 
very brim—through the bazaar, and to bring it 
back without having spilled a drop. He returned, 
pleased and triumphant, because he had succeeded 
in obeying the command. Not a single drop had 
been lost. The wise old teacher praised him, and 
then asked him what he saw as he was passing 
through the bazaar. ‘‘Saw!’’ cried the young man, 
““Why, I saw nothing.’’ ‘‘How can that be?’’ re- 
plied the teacher. ‘‘For I know that the very time 
when you were in the bazaar the Sultan with some 
of his chief attendants went by.’’ ‘‘ Well, that 


265 


266 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


may We,’’ said the young man; ‘‘but how could I 
see anything, or anybody, when I had my eyes 
fixt upon the water the whole time, and could 
think of nothing but how to carry it without spill- 
ing, as you told me to do?’’ ‘‘Ah!’’ said the 
teacher, “‘now you can understand how we may 
be so entirely occupied with some work that God 
has given us to do as to be quite unconscious of the 
sinful allurements of the world, which strive to 
attract our attention as we are passing through 
them.’’ by 

Our text is in the midst of a triumphant para- 
graph sounding the note of encouragement. Paul 
has been calling the roll of the heroes of faith, and 
inspired by the memory of them he exclaims: 
““Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about 
with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside 
every weight, and the sin which doth so easily be- 
set us, and let us run with patience the race that 
is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and 
finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set 
before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, 
and is set down at the right hand of the throne 
of God. For consider him that endured such con- 
tradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be 
wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet 
resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye 


CHRIST THE SUPREME OBJECT 267 


have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto 
you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the 
chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art re- 
buked of him. For whom the Lord loveth he 
chasteneth.’’ 

I 


Consideration of Christ will comfort and recon- 
cile us to the difficulties of our lives, and give us 
fortitude in bearing the burdens necessary to help- 
ful service for humanity. When we are wading 
against the current in our daily experience, we 
sometimes feel that we are getting more than our 
share of opposition, and are carrying more than 
our shoulders are able to bear of the burdens of 
life. At such a time it cannot help doing us good 
to look at Christ and consider what he voluntarily 
endured for us. One of the quaint old students of 
the Bible once said, ‘‘Our troubles are but as the 
slivers and chips of his ecross.’’ If we consider 
Christ even when he was most abused, when he 
was spit upon and railed at, and crowned with 
thorns, and beaten with many stripes, we see that 
he was silent and patient under it all. Christ 
was willing to let his life, his deeds, stand as tes- 
timony against all the world could say. And how 
well the history of the world has vindicated Jesus 
in that silence, for in the end a man’s faithful work 


268 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


is his only defense in the court of time. Ole Bull, 
the great violinist, was once offered space in the 
New York Herald to answer his detractors. He 
declined with these words: ‘‘I think it is best 
that they write against me and I play against 
them.’’ The finest argument against any one’s 
enemies is a faithful doing of the very best one can 
do. And if we keep our mind and heart in steady 
consideration of Jesus it will not only be easy for 
us to do that, but we will get the blessing which is 
always wrapt up in such patient endurance. We 
will come to understand the poet who sings: 


“Tf all my years were summer, could I know 
What my Lord means by his ‘Made white as snow’? 
If all my days were sunny, could I say 
‘In his fair land he wipes all tears away’? 

If I were never weary could I keep 

Close to my heart, ‘He gives his lovéd sleep’? 
Were no graves mine, might I not come to deem 
The life eternal but a baseless dream? 

My winter, yea, my tears, my weariness, 

Even my graves may be his way to bless, 

I call them ills, yet that can surely be 

Nothing but good that shows my Lord to me.” 


Consideration of Christ is sure to comfort us in 
the many discouragements which always come to 
any one sincerely trying to benefit and bless their 
fellow men. In no service can we get so close to 
Christ as in that, and in none are we so sure to 


CHRIST THE SUPREME OBJECT 269 


experience the secrets of Christ’s career and come 
into the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. John 
Ruskin once said: ‘‘You cannot save men from 
death, but by suffering it for them; you cannot 
save men from sin, but by resisting it for them.”’ 


“All through life I see a cross, 

Where sons of God yield up their breath, 
There is no gain except by loss, 

There is no life except by death. 

There is no vision except by faith, 

Nor glory but in bearing shame, 

Nor justice but in taking blame. 

And that eternal passion saith, 

Be emptied of glory and right and name.” 


And in harmony with that Jesus says, ‘‘If any 
man will come after me, let him deny himself, and 
take up his cross daily, and follow me.”’ 


II 

Consideration of Christ alone can give us a just 
estimate of the value of humanity. The world is 
always judging men by what they have, by the 
amount of their goods and possessions, rather than 
by what they are. When Robert Browning went 
wooing at the home of Elizabeth Barrett, the father 
of the lady asked her one day with a sneer, ‘‘ Has 
that man been here?’’ To the elder Barrett’s 
notion a man whose income was only five hundred 


270 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


dollars a year was, decidedly, ‘‘that man.’’ Yet 
Robert Browning managed to save his soul, build a 
character in the world like a white pillar, and earn 
for himself an immortality which only goodness 
and genius combined can give. 

The Christ attitude toward man is very different. 
The other day I saw a story about Cecil Rhodes, 
which warmed my heart. After he had become one 
of the richest men in the world and was living in 
his great house in South Africa, a man ealled to 
see him on business. Mr. Rhodes had four footmen, 
very proper footmen, uniformed and powdered. 
The man who ealled was plainly drest and looked 
poor. Of course, he was received in footman 
fashion, kept waiting a long time, and finally 
ushered, with scant respect, into the great man’s 
presence. After the little business matter had been 
transacted the visitor said, ‘‘Mr. Rhodes, I think 
you will thank me for telling you that your foot- 
men are not altogether courteous to men that look 
poor!’’ Those footmen were out of the house in 
ten minutes, hunting a new job. That, I take it, 
is the spirit of Christ in his attitude toward men. 
Does he not say, ‘‘ Him that cometh to me I will in 
no wise cast out’’? He gave the same welcome to 
Zaccheeus, the grafting politician, as to Nicodemus, 
the respectable ruler. He was as good to Peter, 


OHRIST THE SUPREME OBJECT 271 


the swearing, blundering fisherman, as he was to 
Paul, the cultured aristocrat. He was as kind to 
a sick, beggared woman as to the man who lived 
in the best house in the town. To Christ, manhood 
and womanhood were the precious things worth 
living and dying to redeem, no matter what their 
surroundings, and the more we consider Christ the 
truer will be our attitude toward mankind. 

Joseph Parker on one occasion, in his pulpit in 
City Temple, London, told how some minister had 
complained to him that he had only added one 
member to his church for a good while, and that 
was a poor washerwoman, and Parker replied, ‘‘Oh, 
indeed! any family ?”’ 

**A large family—six boys.”’ 

** And you added the mother of six boys to your 
ehurech! Who can tell how many you added when 
you added that laundress? These may be six 
kings, six leaders of men, six apostles.’’ That is 
the true Christian spirit. May we all learn it from 
Jesus Christ through earnest and faithful con- 
sideration of him until humanity everywhere is 
sacred to us. 

Til 

Consideration of Christ will give us a clear vision 
of the proper spirit in which the noblest work of 
life must be done. In him we find the perfect un- 


272 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


selfishness which is always necessary as a condition 
of the noblest work. No man who does his work 
simply that he may get money from it, without the 
true spirit of service, will ever do his best work. 
See Balaam, brilliant, imaginative, noble-visioned, a 
strong man in many ways, but his vision is dis- 
tracted by the lust for gold, and his tragedy is one 
of the most terrible in the Old Testament day. 
David Watson says that whenever a poet begins 
to write verse to order, to sing for gold, and not 
merely because he must, as the lark at heaven’s 
gate, he sells his inspiration, he sins against the 
Holy Ghost, and no true poem was ever written 
under these conditions. Verse may be written, but 
not a poem. Not a line that Burns wrote for 
money is worth reading, and none knew that better 
than Burns himself. Ask any poet or any artist, 
and he will tell you that the verses he wrote or 
pictures he painted merely for money are the most 
unsatisfactory things he ever did. They lack gen- 
uine inspiration, they lack soul; they were pot- 
. boilers, as they call themselves. They were hack- 
work. Of course, such work must be done, for 
men must live; but be very sure of this, that no 
work of art which is a thing of beauty and a joy 
forever, like the Venus de Milo, no grand poem, 
like the ‘‘ Divina Commedia,’’ the ‘‘In Memoriam,’’ 


CHRIST THE SUPREME OBJECT 273 


and the ‘‘ Ancient Mariner,’’ uplifting the souls of 
men, was ever produced for gold; and the same is 
true of the world’s work generally as done by the 
blacksmith, or the carpenter, or the cook, or the 
dressmaker, or the lawyer, or the doctor, or the 
preacher. It is not for filthy lucre that any one 
of us will ever do our best work. We must have 
our wage that we may live, but in the spirit of 
Jesus Christ there must always be in our minds 
and hearts the pleasure of doing our work well for 
the joy of knowing it is well done, for the pure 
satisfaction of using our gifts as God would have 
us use them to produce from them the highest re- 
sults possible. 

As we consider Christ we will catch his courage, 
that will hold us brave and true when other men 
are ready to fly from the struggle. Lord Rose- 
bery, in his recent life of Napoleon, recalls a say- 
ing of that great man of war. Napoleon says: 
‘There is a moment in every great war when the 
bravest troops feel inclined to run; it is the want 
of confidence in their own courage.’’ And then 
Napoleon adds: ‘‘The supreme art of generalship 
is to know just when that moment will come and 
to provide for it. At Arcola I won the battle with 
twenty-five horsemen. I anticipated the moment 
of fright and flight, and I had twenty-five men 


274 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


ready, of cool nerve and decision, and just at the 
appropriate moment I turned the twenty-five into 
the host and the battle was won.’’ Twenty-five 
men who had not lost their nerve brought back 
confidence to a host who were inclined for fright 
and flight. The man who was cool for fight brought 
back the hordes who were ready for flight, and that 
has its analogy in every department of life. Again 
and again we see one brave and true member of a 
family save a whole household from a cowardly 
yielding to sin. And often one young man in a 
group, with the courage of honest principles, saves 
all of them from the hell of dissipation. Now, my 
friends, there come times to every one of us when 
we are tempted to run. No matter what we do, the 
battle seems to be going against us, and we are 
ready to fly. When we feel like that there is one 
sure refuge, and that is to consider Jesus. He 
never loses his nerve, never runs, is always brave 
and true, and if we study him we shall breathe 
into our souls his courage. 

If we consider Christ we shall catch his spirit 
of obedience to God and shall become practised in 
that discipline of faith which is so essential to make 
any man or woman an efficient soldier of Jesus 
Christ. I shall never forget how thrilled I was in 
my young boyhood in reading the story of how 


CHRIST THE SUPREME OBJECT 275 


Wolfe took Quebec. With almost breathless in- 
terest I followed the boats as they dropt down 
the St. Lawrence River, the one order to the men 
being, ‘‘ Perfect silence,’’ no shout, no whisper, but 
wait. And then, in the dead silence, the awfully 
perilous ascent of the heights of Quebec that led 
up to the Plains of Abraham. A company of men, 
through the night, winding their way up that 
narrow trail. If the enemy once hear them, if the 
enemy once suspect their presence, nothing can 
save them, for half a dozen men can hold the defile 
at the other end. Everything depends upon dis- 
cipline, obedience, silence, the mounting the 
heights until the last man is ready for the cap- 
tain’s word to strike the blow. And we know how 
those men ascended. No sound was heard. Up and 
up, through the hours of the night, until the last 
man was upon the heights, when the word was 
given, and Quebec was taken. The church of 
Jesus Christ needs to learn that great lesson 
to-day, Guerrillas and bushwhackers and strag- 
glers have never yet fought a great battle or 
carried a great cause to success. We need to so 
consider Christ that we shall catch his spirit of 
supreme obedience to God and supreme loyalty 
to united and federated effort for the salvation 
of men. 


276 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


IV 


It is only as we consider Christ that we are 
fanned with the breath of the eternal world, and 
are able tv breast all difficulties and sorrows with 
an undying hope. Dr. J. H. Jowett tells us that 
he had a friend who, in his matured life, published 
a book on which he had bestowed the hard labors 
of many years. Some time before its publication 
his wife died, and he was left alone. The book 
received an enthusiastic welcome, and now enjoys 
high eminence in its own department of learning. 
Jowett spoke to his friend of his well-deserved 
reward and of the triumph of his labors. His face 
immediately clouded and he quietly said, ‘‘ Ah, if 
only she were here to share it.’’ His loneliness 
culminated there, and his sharpest pang was ex- 
perienced in his sunniest hour. It is not otherwise 
with the moral triumphs of the soul. When we 
fall into sin and falter in the fight, we feel that we 
need a companion to whom we ean tell the story 
of our defeat; and with equal need when we have 
some secret triumph we want a companion to share 
the glow and the glory of the conquest, or the glow 
and the glory will fade. Even when we conquer 
secret sin the heart calls for a companion in the 
joy! And here He is! Does not God say, ‘‘My 
presence shall go with thee’’? And if we will admit 


CHRIST THE SUPREME OBJECT 277 


Christ into our hearts and consider him day by day 
we shall not be without a Companion, a precious 
friend, who will not only be with us in this life, but 
who will lead us into the immortal life beyond. 
Aristotle said that ‘‘Death is the most terrible of 
all things, for it is an end.’’ But the man who 
lives in fellowship with and under the leadership 
of Jesus Christ knows that death is not an end, 
but an entrance upon fuller, nobler existence and 
blest reunion with those loved ones who have 
preceded us through its silent door. Browning’s 
triumphant words of cheer and hope ought to warm 
our hearts and ring in our ears: 


“One fight more, 

The best and the last! 

I would hate that Death bandaged my eyes, and forebore, 
And bade me creep past. 

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers, 
The heroes of old. 

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life’s arrears 
Of pain, darkness, and cold. 

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, 
The black minute’s at end, 

And the elements’ rage, the fiend-voices that rave, 
Shall dwindle, shall blend, 

Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, 
Then a light, then thy breast, 

O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, 
And with God be the rest!” 


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THE LORDSHIP 
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THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST 


“For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord.” 
—Il. Corinthians IV: 5. Am. Rev. 
URING the last few months there has been 
awakened in England a great deal of 
discussion concerning what has been called ‘‘The 
New Theology.’’ Innumerable sermons have 
been preached, the religious papers have been 
filled with articles, editorial and otherwise, in 
regard to the vagaries of a popular young 
minister concerning the nature and character 
of sin and the personality and mission of Jesus 
Christ. The discussion naturally has drifted 
over the ocean, and aroused more or less atten- 
tion in our own pulpits and religious press. At 
such times it is always profitable to comfort our 
hearts with the great fundamental certainties of 
our religion. The Rev. J. H. Jowett, preaching re- 
cently in Christ Church, Westminster, speaking of 
the great need humanity has for Christ, exclaimed: 
“But it must be the real Christ, the risen, glori- 
fied, personal Christ; not a fine man, not the finest 
of men, but the Lord of Glory, Christ unique and 
alone, above all men, governing all men, holding all 


281 


282 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


men. Jesus Christ my Lord shall not be to me a 
mere historic personage whom I revere, whom I 
admire, whom in some degree I love; he shall be to 
me a living, bright reality, in touch with me now; 
not a mere statue in the Abbey, but a presence fill- 
ing the Abbey. When I speak to Jesus, does he 
hear me? Is he a living, immediate Presence, with 
his hand on me? Is he a great superlative man in 
history, or does he know me now? He is my Lord. 
He knows his sheep by name. If he does not hear 
my voice now, I have got no Savior, and I have got 
no redemption. I must have a Lord who ean lay his 
hand on me now, who knows my infirmity, who is 
not on the summit of some great mount calling to 
me with a voice like a great Excelsior to climb to 
him, but who will come down to the base of the 
mount and deal with me there. When I speak to 
him, he hears. I can say that of none other. I can- 
not speak of Luther, I cannot speak of Augustine, 
I cannot speak of saintly men of all ages like that. 
I know not that they can hear, or ean help. But 
I speak of Jesus, and 
“‘Thou, O Christ, art all I want. 
Freely let me take of thee.’” 

‘ It is this Christ, who is King and Lord over all, 
into whose presence I wish to lead our thoughts 
reverently at this time. For, after all, the center 


= -— = 


THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST 283 


of our religion is Jesus Christ. It is a personal 
religion, and it must stand or fall by the person of 
Jesus Christ. I will not take up my time worrying 
over criticisms concerning the shell of religion so 
long as it is all right between my soul and Jesus 
Christ. 

I 


Some thirty years ago, at a time when questions 
regarding evolution and inspiration were stagger- 
ing the faith of some people, an Oxford professor 
wrote in a private note-book these lines: . 


“T have a life with Christ to live, 
But ere I live it must I wait 

Till learning can clear answer give 
Of this and that book’s date? 


“T have a life in Christ to live, 
I have a death in Christ to die, 
And must I wait till science give 
All doubts a full reply? 


“Nay, rather, while the sea of doubt 
Is raging wildly round about, 
Questioning of life and death and sin, 
Let me but creep within 
Thy fold, O Christ, and at thy feet 
Take but the lowest seat 
And hear thine awful voice repeat 
In gentle accents, heavenly, sweet, 

‘Come unto me and rest, 
Believe me and be blest.’” 


284 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Christ has proved his Lordship in the atonement 
which he made for sin and in the revelation of his 
power to forgive sins. Nothing was kept more com- 
pletely at the front throughout the whole public 
ministry of Jesus than the claim made by himself 
that he came to make atonement for the sins of men. 
‘He says, ‘‘The Son of man came to give his life a 
ransom for many.’’ He calls himself ‘‘The Good 
Shepherd,’’ who ‘‘giveth his life for the sheep.’’ 
He distinctly says, ‘‘I am the good shepherd . 
and I lay down my life for the sheep.’ To empha- 
size these sacrifices he speaks as no mere man could 
speak when he says: ‘‘Therefore doth my Father 
love me, because I lay down my life, that I might 
take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay 
it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, 
and I have power to take it again.’”’ Again and 
again, by parables, by allegory, in public sermons 
and in private conversations, by illustration and in 
the plainest possible speech, Christ announced the 
fact of his coming death as a sacrifice for the sins 
of men. Christ stood in our place, and took on his 
shoulders the blow that was meant for us. Our 
race had fallen behind, crippled and ruined by sin, 
and Christ came in infinite love to search after 
humanity when it was lost. 

Some of you have heard the story of the little 


THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST 285 


drummer-boy who was left behind to perish. When 
Napoleon was going with the troops across the Alps, 
and they were making their way to the plains of 
Italy, a little drummer-boy slipt down many 
hundreds of yards with an avalanche of snow. He 
was partly covered and wedged into the snow-drift, 
and it was utterly impossible for him to get out 
without help. The soldiers who witnessed the acci- 
dent looked back, but they dared not stop and go to 
his rescue without orders. The little boy com- 
menced to play on his drum the relief call, and the 
soldiers heard him, and they longed for orders to 
relieve him; and Napoleon himself was told of the 
accident, but in some moods the life of a little 
drummer-boy was of no value to him; so on they 
went and still he played the relief call. He watched 
the army fast disappearing, and no help or relief 
coming; and when the brave little fellow saw there 
was to be no rescue, he began to beat his own funeral 
march, and many of the veteran soldiers wept as 
they heard it, and after they reached home they 
told the story to their wives and children, and they 
also wept. That is not the way God treated us 
in our fallen and lost condition. He heard our re- 
lief call and came to our rescue. He did not leave 
us behind to perish and to beat our own funeral 
march and die; but he came in Jesus Christ, our 


286 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Savior and our Lord, to our rescue and deliverance. - 

Nothing shows the lordship of Jesus Christ more 
clearly than his power to forgive sin. You re- 
member what trouble the friends of that poor para- 
lytic man took to bring him to Christ. They were 
seeking simply the healing of his body. They 
hoped to see him walk again. But when they let 
him down before Christ, the Master, looking on him, 
went to the root of the matter when he said: ‘‘Thy 
sins be forgiven thee.’’ And to the poor sinful 
woman who came to him in the house of the Phari- 
see, Christ said, ‘‘Thy sins are forgiven thee. Thy 
faith hath saved thee; go in peace.’’ Tennyson has 
painted this scene in matchless words: 

“Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, 
Nor other thought her mind admits 


But, he was dead, and there he sits, 
And He that brought him back is there. 


“Then one deep love doth supersede 
All other, when her ardent gaze 
Roves from the living brother’s face 

And rests upon the Life indeed. 


“All subtle thought, all curious fears, 
Borne down by gladness so complete, 
She bows, she bathes the Savior’s feet 
With costly spikenard and with tears.” 
So completely is Christ Lord over sin that he has 


power to take away the sting and sense of bitter re- 


THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST 287 


morse and shame out of the heart of the forgiven 
sinner. A man who had lived for many years the 
Christian life told Dr. Charles MacFarland that 
there was a place in a street in a certain city which 
was associated with a sin. Every time in his early 
life when he passed that place, it brought back 
again the keen remorse and shame. It seemed to 
stain his life afresh whenever he saw the very 
place. But when he came to God and gave his heart 
and life to Christ, the first time he passed that place 
afterward his soul was filled by a great transport 
of joy that all that was done, that it was no longer 
a part of his life, that God had forgiven and for- 
gotten, and cast it behind his back. And he en- 
tered for a moment at least into the perfect joy of 
soul, he forgot the shame of his youth and re- 
membered the reproach no more. Thank God for 
the ever-increasing multitudes of redeemed men 
and women who are able to say with Paul, ‘‘This is 
a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, 
that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sin- 
ners, of whom I am chief.’’ 


II 
Christ has proved his lordship not only by re- 
vealing to us the perfect pattern of a human life, 
but by giving us power to live that life in fellow- 


288 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


ship with him. Campbell Morgan says: Jesus 
Christ becomes the Lord because he communicates 
to man the new energy, the dynamic of life. By his 
Holy Spirit he writes the law of God no longer upon 
the tables of stone at which men are to look, but 
upon the heart; by that same Spirit he constrains 
the rebellious will of man until, instead of lifting 
itself against God, it sings the song of his law, and, 
catching the music of Christ’s own life, repeats it: 
“‘T delight to do thy will, O my God;’’ and by the 
self-same Spirit he not only writes the law of God 
upon the heart and constrains the spirit of man to 
obedience, but energizes man so that, standing erect 
in the presence of a past impossibility, he says, 
‘“‘Now I can do all things through Christ who 
strengtheneth me.’’ 

Christ shows his lordship in giving to common 
men victory over their selfishness, and the grace to 
imitate himself. Tennyson describes it in those 
melodious lines: epee 

Smote the chords of self, which, trembling, 
Passed in music out of sight.” 

It is told of Leonardo da Vinci that when he was 
painting his wonderful picture of the Last Supper, 
he had a bitter quarrel with another artist, and he 
thought that he would strike a lasting blow at him, 
and show what he thought of him, by painting his 


THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST 289 


face in that picture for the face of Judas Iscariot. 
And so he did. The enemy whom he hated he set 
in the picture as Judas Iscariot, that men might 
know what he thought of him. And then he worked 
on at his picture until he came to paint the central 
figure—the face of our Lord; and he tried and 
tried again, but he never could satisfy himself with 
it. Always it was at fault. Always it was clearly 
behind what he wanted to get. Meanwhile there 
had been growing in his heart some sense of sin 
and shame at what he had done toward his enemy. 
This feeling grew in him as he worked on, until at 
last he got quite ashamed and repentant, and made 
up his mind that he had done a wrong; and so at 
last he sponged out the face of Judas Iscariot. And 
that night he saw in a dream the face of our Lord 
which he afterward sketched and painted in the 
picture. There were the lineaments and the look 
that he had been longing to sketch, but which he 
could not portray until he had put away selfishness 
and bitterness out of his heart. 

Our Lord, who was made perfect through suffer- 
ings, is ever able to lead his disciples over the path 
of pain and struggle to the saintliest and holiest 
life. We are told in Mark’s gospel that ‘‘He was 
with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered 
unto him.’’ The same ministration still comes to 


290 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


tempted and tried men and women who live in 
fellowship with their Lord. J. M. Barrie has a 
beautiful chapter in ‘‘Margaret Ogilvy,’’ entitled 
‘How My Mother Got Her Soft Face.’’ It is a 
beautiful description of a sweetness of life that 
came through suffering and bereavement. The ‘‘ wild 
beasts’’ may snarl and sometimes wound and tear 
our lives, but if Christ is Lord there shall be the 
ministry of angels, and there shall be the peace of 
God. The highest life can only come through strug- 
gling and climbing in fellowship with the Master. 
Some one says that saintliness is like the Alpine 
edelweiss, which, as Dora Greenwell so beautifully 
sings, lives ‘‘in the mist and the cloud,’’ and must 
be sought and found only by brave hearts and 
strong souls: 


“T bloom for the eagle’s eye, 
I bloom for the daring hand; 
I live but for God, and I die 
Unto him, and at his command.” 


III 
Christ is Lord of immortality. He brought life 
and immortality to light. He made it the common 
heritage of mankind. The supreme hope of the 
world centers in immortality revealed in Jesus 
Christ. Professor Fairbairn, in a recent discourse 
on ‘‘The Keys of Hell and of Death,’’ recalls the 


THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST 291 


vision of one of the early seers of literature, who 
dreamed that once God called up into heaven the 
soul of a man, and he said to the angels that stood 
by, ‘‘Strip that child of earth from his robes of 
flesh. Put on him sail-broad wings for flight. Show 
him over all my house, only touch not the human 
heart, the heart in him that weeps and trembles.’’ 
So they left that human heart to the child of earth. 
They put sail-broad wings for flight upon him; 
they stript him of his robes of flesh; then, under 
the guidance of a mighty angel, they shot sheer 
from the battlements of heaven out into space. 
There they went through a wilderness of dead 
worlds; whatever world they saw looked like a 
burned-out cinder. That wilderness of extinct 
worlds frowned upon the heart and prest heavily 
upon the soul of the child of earth. Out from there 
they swept, and they came into a universe where 
every world was new, where star sang to star in 
the mystic excellence of voice that speaketh only 
of him who had newly made them, the great Creator 
of all. From this they swept into a universe where 
no world was, where only from far immensity there 
floated dim and distant the dust of worlds that 
were to be, star-dust, it might be, yet dust still of 
worlds in the making. The child of earth felt the 
heart within him grow sad, and the soul within him 


292 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


grow sorrowful. He fain would see a face; only 
atoms, atoms of extinguished, atoms of new made, 
atoms that were still the germs of worlds that were 
to be. On he went, until he said, ‘‘Oh, angel, angel, 
pause; is there no grave where I can lie down and 
hide from the persecution of the infinite, for to this 
universe there is no end.’’ ‘‘No end,’’ said the 
angel, ‘‘to the universe of God; know also there is 
no beginning.’’ And as they thus looked, and the 
child of earth would fain have lain down in a silent 
grave, he gazed into the far horizon, and he saw a 
cloud no bigger than a man’s hand come toward 
them. It grew into the face of a child; it drew 
nearer, the face of the child broadened into the 
face of a man; as it came nearer still, lo! the child 
of earth saw Jesus of Nazareth passing him by in 
the great universe, and he cried out, ‘‘O Lord, Te- 
ceive me.’’ And the Lord received him, opened 
wide his arms and embraced the child of earth. He 
had now no use for a grave and did not want to 
die, if the universe had, as its very heart, and its 
very essence, and as its very home, the great Rest 
of man, the Heart of love. 

It is Christ that makes immortality tender and 
loving and attractive to us. It is the Christ who 
stood among the graves of earth and said, ‘‘In my 
Father’s house are many mansions.... I go to 


a 


THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST 293 


prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a 
place for you, I will come again, and receive you 
unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be 
also.’”? We are making no pilgrimage into the 
dark. We are traveling toward our ‘‘Father’s 
House.’’ 


“The stars shine over the earth, 

The stars shine over the sea, 

The stars look up to the mighty God, 
The stars look down on me. 

The stars shall live for a million years, 
A million years and a day, 

But Christ and I will live and love 
When the stars have passed away.” 


THE BREATHING 
PLACES OF THE SOUL 


THE BREATHING PLACES 
OF THE SOUL 


“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their 
strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they 
shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and 
not faint.”—Isaiah XL: 31. 

N more than one of the great cities of the world I 

have found it refreshing and full of interest to 
go out into some of the parks, especially on a hot 
afternoon, when the crowded streets were filled with 
dust and heat and noise and turmoil, and I have 
rejoiced again and again at the quiet and restful- 
ness to be found but a few minutes’ walk away 
from the busy marts of the city. There tired men 
and women had a chance to breathe; and the re- 
freshing green which met the eyes, the singing 
birds, and playful squirrels, and the innocent and 
unannoyed prattle of the children, and the restful 
liberty which was everywhere renewed my strength. 
Such parks are very aptly called ‘‘the breathing 
places’’ of the great cities. 

Now the soul needs to breathe as well as the body, 
and our text suggests not only the necessity but the 


297 


298 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


possibility of these breathing places for the soul. 
It assures us that God has not forgotten this need, 
and that with sleepless and unwearying vigilance 
he is ever ready to supply it. The whole paragraph 
of which our text is the final clause is marvelously 
beautiful and sublime: ‘‘Hast thou not known? 
hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the 
Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth 
not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his 
understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and 
to them that have no might he increaseth strength. 
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the 
young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait 
upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they 
shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall 
run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and 
not faint.’’ 

It is our pleasant and, I trust, helpful study this 
morning to consider some of these breathing places 
of the soul, where we may wait upon the Lord and 
find our strength renewed and our souls refreshed 
for the journey of life. Bunyan understood the ne- 
cessity of such breathing places, and in his ‘‘Pil- 
grim’s Progress,’’ in which he traces Christian’s 
pilgrimage through shadow and sunshine to the 
Celestial City, he grants him every now and then 
a breathing place for visions by the way. On the 


BREATHING PLACES OF THE SOUL 299 


way up the Hill Difficulty, he takes him aside to the 
Interpreter’s House, with his happy talk and his 
frescoes and parabolic pictures of the hidden forces 
and the ideal incentives of the Christian life. On 
the top of the hill he gave him a pause in the House 
Beautiful, where he was comforted and cheered by 
the Three Graces. After the fight with Apollyon, he 
sees the vision of the Hand holding forth some of 
the leaves of the Tree of Life, ‘‘the which Christian 
took and applied to the wounds he had received in 
battle, and was healed immediately.’’ After Doubt- 
ing Castle he came to the Delectable Mountains, 
where were gardens and orchards, vineyards and 
fountains of water; where the pilgrims drank, and 
washed themselves, and did eat freely of the vine- 
yards. And then, at last, before the crossing of the 
river, they stopt a while in Beulah land, where 
they were in sight of the city they were going to, 
and saw that it was built of pearls and precious 
stones, and also the street thereof was paved with 
gold, so that by reason of the natural glory of the 
city, and the refiection of the sunbeams upon it, 
Christian with desire fell sick to be there. Always 
after some great struggle and victory, or before 
some dark and trying experience, Bunyan gives his 
pilgrim these heavenly visions to reward him, and 
to sustain him in the narrow path to the end. And 


300 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


in all this Bunyan is only true to the Christian life 
and its divine possibilities. God has provided 
breathing places for our souls where we may find all 
the refreshment we need on our way to heaven. 
Let us prayerfully consider some of them. 


I 


j 
The first breathing place of the soul is Bible 


reading. The Bible is preeminently the Christian’s 
book. It is the book of the spirit; the book of the 
soul. The rich farmer in the Gospel found he could 
not feed his soul on ‘‘much goods’’ stored in his 
barns, and God called him a fool for trying it. 
Souls can only be fed and refreshed through fellow- 
ship, and the Bible beyond all other books in the 
world is a book of high and holy fellowship. Lyman 
Abbott comments very beautifully on this truth. 
He says that a book is a friend; a good book is a 
good friend. It will talk to you when you want it 
to talk, and it will keep still when you want it to 
keep still—and there are not a great many friends 
who know enough for that. A library is a collection 
of friends. You go into your library of an evening, 
and you look over its shelves and pick out the 
friend you want to talk to you. It may be you are 
weary and worried with turmoil of the present and 
you want to get into the past, and you ask Homer 


BREATHING PLACES OF THE SOUL 301 


to talk to you, or you may want to forget this world 
and think of the other, and you ask Dante to talk 
to you, or your mind is too weary to dwell with such 
themes, and you ask Thackeray to chat with you. 
Or you want to know what the Twentieth Century 
itself is in its essential spirit, and you ask Rudyard 
Kipling to interpret it to you. A book is a friend; 
a library is a collection of friends. The Bible is a 
library. We go to it, not as we go to a school-book 
to get information, accurate or inaccurate, about 
something outside of the men who wrote it. It isa 
library, a collection of friends; and we go to it that 
we may see what they saw, feel what they felt, walk 
as they walked, share their struggles with them, 
ask them to share our struggles with us—that, in a 
word, we may live their lives. There is not a doubt, 
not a skepticism, not a perplexity, not a temptation, 
that assails any honest, earnest, sincere man in this 
morning of this twentieth century, that does not 
find some hint or suggestion in this splendid collec- 
tion of friends—all the more friends because they 
have been through the dark places I must go 
through, have wrestled with the temptations I have 
wrestled with, have climbed the heights step by step 
as I must climb—aye, and have wandered to the 
right hand and to the left from the beaten track, 
as I too am tempted to wander. 


302 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


I said the Bible was a book of souls. It is more 
than that—it is the book of souls in their relation 
to God. Open your Bible to these first five books of 
law. Much that is in these books so far as immedi- 
ate application is concerned has long since been 
laid aside, but they have not lost their value be- 
cause of that, for illuminating them all is the great 
fundamental declaration that God spoke these 
words. Behind all to the Jewish law-giver was 
God. Law was to him the interpretation of God. 
No man can breathe in that atmosphere without re- 
freshing his soul. Turn to these next books of his- 
tory. They deal largely with little petty events. 
They are not by any means all the great deeds of 
great men. They are very frequently the mean 
deeds of mean men; but they were written by men 
who saw God in history. We sometimes look on life 
as one might took upon a chess-board in which the 
pieces play the game themselves. Now it is a 
knight, now it is a castle, now it is a pawn, now it is 
a bishop, now it is a king, that moves; and why 
they move back and forth, and what the end of it 
all will be, we are puzzled to determine. But these 
great historians of the past who wrote the Bible 
saw God’s hand on the chess-men, saw him move 
them, and knew that at the end white would check- 
mate black, and sweep the black off from the con- 


a 


BREATHING PLACES OF THE SOUL 303 


quered board. No man can look at the game of life 
through the eyes of the Bible and not refresh his 
soul. 

Then there is the poetry of the Bible. Purely as 
poetry we may not like it so well as more modern 
poetry and yet not be irreverent. But for the sub- 
lime purpose for which it was written it surpasses 
all poetry. Over the holy of holies of the Egyptian 
Temple was written: ‘‘Who shall draw aside my 
veil?’’ The poetry of the Bible draws aside the veil 
and shows us that behind nature and behind human 
life is God. When the clouds gather in the western 
sky, and the lightning illumines the clouds back 
and forth, and presently the thunder crashes along 
the hills, take down the eighteenth Psalm and read 
the poet’s picture of a thunder-storm as he saw it 
forty centuries ago on the slopes of Lebanon: 


“Then the earth shook and trembled, 

The foundations also of the mountains moved 
And were shaken, because he was wroth. 
There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, 

And fire out of his mouth devoured: 
Coals were kindled by it. 

He bowed the heavens also, and came down; 
And thick darkness was under his feet. 

And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: 

Yea, he flew swiftly upon the wings of the wind. 
He made darkness his hiding-place, his pavilion round 

about him; 


304 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies. 

At the brightness before him his thick clouds passed, 
Hailstones and coals of fire. 

The Lord also thundered in the heavens, 

And the Most High uttered his voice; 

Hailstones and coals of fire, 

And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; 

Yea, lightnings manifold, and discomfited them.” 

The poet saw God behind the thunder-storm. 
And so you can go to the Bible in law, or history, or 
poetry and have a new revelation of God given you. 
And still more truly in the New Testament, where 
you are brought into close, breathing fellowship 
with Jesus Christ, the friend of sinners; the com- 
forter of the sorrowing; the brother of the tempted, 
the immortal conqueror over death, your soul is en- 
larged and exalted and comes to its throne. 


II 

Secret prayer and meditation is another breath- 
ing place of the soul. The great saints have been 
noted for their prayerfulness. When Thomas a 
Kempis had guests he used to say to them, when the 
time came for his private devotion, ‘‘Brethren, I 
must go. There is some one waiting for me in my 
cell.’’ No wonder he wrote a book about ‘‘ The Imi- 
tation of Christ’’ which all ages, and all nations, 
and all schools of Christians find the next book to 
the Bible. His soul had daily breathing room. The 


BREATHING PLACES OF THE SOUL 305 


saintly Bengel went into his closet at stated times, 
and remained there perfectly silent with the open 
Bible before him. There he would sit thinking most 
deeply, not unfrequently until the midnight hour; 
then he would fold his arms over the open book and 
say, ‘‘Lord Jesus, thou knowest me,’’ and immedi- 
ately fall sound asleep. True Christian advance- 
ment will never be made except through prayerful- 
ness. The soldier who talks of deeds he is going to 
perform in the battle, while he allows his sword to 
rust in its seabbard or forgets his ammunition; the 
sentinel who lets his enemy creep on him unawares 
while dreaming of the blows he will strike him when 
he comes within reach—we know what becomes of 
them. How can we hope to survive in the spiritual 
warfare if we sleep away our hour of preparation ? 
What spiritual blow can be struck by the men or 
women who neglect the exercise of prayer? ‘‘Ad- 
vance on your knees’’; the great missionary Morri- 
son said in speaking of the spiritual conquest of 
China. ‘‘ Advance on your knees!’’ is the motto of 
all who would conquer the world, the flesh, and the 
devil. The failure of many people to stand in the 
face of temptation is simply the failure to hold 
seeret communion with God in prayer. Many a 
Christian pilgrim has found strength to go on with 
soul refreshed and encouraged simply by pouring 


306 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


out the story of his trial and sorrow when none but 
God heard. 

Some of you have read that remarkable story of 
‘*Kim’’ which Kipling gave us a few years ago. In 
it we have the incident where the little lad, ‘‘the 
little friend of all the world,’’ overborne by strain, 
fatigue, and the weight upon his years, broke down 
and sobbed at the feet of the aged man for whom 
he begged in the dawn, held the weary head on his 
lap during the noonday heats, fanned away the flies 
on the hot afternoons until his wrist ached, begged 
again in the evening, and rubbed the tired, aged 
feet at night. The wise old man said gently: 
“Thou hast never stept a hair’s breadth from the 
way of obedience, child. I have lived on thy 
strength as an old tree lives on the lime of a new 
wall. Therefore, not through any sin of thine art 
thou weakened. Be comforted.’’ And ‘‘Kim’’ was 
comforted. That is only a story told by a master 
hand, but it is true of the deepest life. Pour out 
your soul to God in prayer, and tho you have 
been weary and broken through heavy burdens, he 
will wipe away your tears. You shall have precious 
communion with heaven and you will go forth from 
your devotion comforted and refreshed, as ‘‘Kim’”’ 
went forth from his old friend’s benediction. 

Prayer is not asking only, it is as much listening 


BREATHING PLACES OF THE SOUL 307 


as it is asking. The Psalmist says, ‘‘Cause me to 
hear . . . for I lift up my soul unto thee.’’ 
When alone, if we open our hearts to God, and 
meditate upon him, and commune with him, and 
listen to him, that is true prayer. Some poet says: 

“Tn the quietness of life, 

When the flowers have shut their eye, 

And a stainless breadth of sky 

Bends above the hill of strife 

Then, my God, my chiefest Good, 

Breathe upon my lonelihood! 


Let the shining silence be 
Filled with thee, my God, with thee.” 


Til 
Sorrow—Afiliction—Trouble. These also are 
breathing places for the soul. Some one has wisely 
said that God has two great instruments for the 
deepening of the soul—love and sorrow. If you 
will not learn by the one, you must learn by the 


* other. Sorrow strips off the layers of our self-com- 


placency, materialism, and worldliness, and throws 
us back upon reason. The old environment is shat- 
tered that the soul may have room to grow. The 
awakening may be painful, but it is salutary and 
effective. If I speak to any who are in the midst 
of sorrow and trial, do not, I beg of you, take your 
sorrow bitterly. The saddest hours of grief, the 
most trying business troubles, have great possibili- 


308 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


ties for you in your higher nature. A fire once 
raged over a long reach of the Pyrenees Mountains, 
destroying many of the vineyards. The villagers 
were greatly distrest at the loss of their vines, but 
to their delight and astonishment they found that 
the terrible heat caused by their destruction had 
made great cracks in the rocks, and in the fissures 
could be seen molten silver, of whose existence they 
had hitherto been utterly unaware. The fire was a 
friend and not a foe; it left them much richer than 
it found them. So Paul says, ‘‘Our light affliction, 
which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far 
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.’’ 

Mr. Mallock, in his book on Cyprus, says that it is 
an enchanted isle, that it is almost always sunshine 
there. He says there are cloudy days, but the 
charm of Cyprus is that in the clouds there is no 
gloom; they are warm, soft, like the breast of a 


dove, and when they pass they have sown a thou- > 


sand garlands to give up the smell of flowers. That 
is like the clouds of sorrow in this world when a 
man lives in the love of God and walks in the path 
of the true Christian; there are clouds, but no 
gloom in them; the horror, the ghastliness, the de- 
spair of sorrow are no more. Watkinson says: “‘If 
you want to suffer nobly, suffer high up, and if you 
do that, sorrow and sighing may come to you, but 


itl St 


BREATHING PLACES OF THE SOUL 309 


sighing will say to sorrow, ‘I cannot get my breath,’ 
and sorrow will say to sighing, ‘the tears are dried 
up in my eyes,’ and sorrow and sighing shall flee 
away.”’ 

Migratory birds never fiy close to the earth; the 
atmosphere is too dense. They have to get up thou- 
sands of feet, where there is no mist, and no resist- 
ance, and then in a single day they will often sweep 
from a northern to a summer climate. Let us learn 
the lesson of the birds. Fly high, live with a wide 
vision, see in sorrow and trouble and difficulty some 
providence of God in which you should learn a les- 
son. Wait upon the Lord in the midst of sorrow 
and it shall be an atmosphere in which you shall 
mount up with wings as eagles. 


Ly 


Old age is a breathing place of the soul. This is 
such a breathing place as those of us who are young 
cannot presume upon, for as the average of human 
life is under forty years, it must be evident that a 
large proportion of us will never see old age. We 
will fall in the midst of the battle with the harness 
on. But for those who have been permitted to pass 
through youth and middle age, and come into that 
realm of relaxation which comes with continued 
years, there are great opportunities and privileges. 


310 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Old age is free from many of the cares and many of 
the burdens that belong to the early years of life. 
It is also free from many of the ambitions that 
chafe and spur a man while he is young. It is a 
glorious thing when the crown of age is upon a 
man’s brow to see him giving his soul a breathing 
place. Old age is a fruitful garden for the spirit- 
ual graces. Many of the most beautiful flowers of 
the Christian life thrive better then, and seem to 
grow more luxuriantly than at any other period. 

Age should be accepted when it comes as an 
honor and a promotion. There is no greater folly 
than to try to seem young by ignoring age. Charles 
Dickens once had a handsome center-piece given 
him by one of the admirers of his writings, the 
design of which was figures representing the sea- 
sons. Winter, however, was omitted, as the donor 
shrank from including that gloomy season in his 
gift to one with whom he connected so much that 
was bright. Pointing to it afterward, Dickens re- 
marked to a friend, ‘‘I never look at it that I do 
not think most of winter. The very absence of it 
in the design made the thought of it more conspicu- 
ous. Winter is one of the seasons of life if you live 
long enough to enjoy it.’’ If we are honored by the 
opportunity, let us accept old age gratefully with 
the glory of the sunset upon our faces. 


BREATHING PLACES OF THE SOUL 311 


“The tallest lilies droop at eventide, 
The sweetest roses fall from off the stem; 
The rarest things on earth cannot abide, 
And we are passing, too, away like them; 
We're growing old! 


“We had our dreams, those rosy dreams of youth! 
They faded, and ’twas well. This afterprime 
Hath brought us fuller hopes: and yet, forsooth, 
We drop a tear now in this later time 
To think we’re old. 


“We smile at those poor fancies of the past— 
A saddened smile, almost akin to pain; 
Those high desires, those purposes so vast, 
Ah, our poor hearts! They cannot come again! 
We're growing old! 


“Old? Well, the heavens are old; this earth is, too; 
Old wine is best, maturest fruit most sweet; 
Much have we lost, more gained, altho ’tis true 
We tread life’s way with most uncertain feet. 
We're growing old! 


“We move along, and scatter as we pace 
Soft graces, tender hopes on every hand; 
At last, with gray-streaked hair and hollow face, 
We step across the boundary of the land 
Where none are old.” 


THE SENTINELS 
OF THE SOUL 


THE SENTINELS OF THE SOUL 


“Every man hath his sword upon his thigh, because of 
fear in the night.’”—Solomon’s Song III: 8. 
HIS is a picture taken from that wonderful 
love poem of the Bible known as ‘‘Solomon’s 
Song.’’ The king is represented as traveling under 
guard. ‘‘ Who is this that cometh out of the wilder- 
ness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and 
frankincense, with all powders of the merchant? 
Behold his bed, which is Solomon’s; threescore val- 
iant men are about it, of the valiant of Israel. They 
all hold swords, being expert in war ; every man hath 
his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the 
night.’’ There is the picture. It does not need 
much imagination to bring it back before the eyes. 
The king is being carried through the wilderness in 
Oriental luxury. This chariot or palanquin, the 
pillars of which are silver, and the bottom of gold, 
covered with the royal purple, carried by his 
devoted servants, with sixty tried veteran soldiers 
guarding him from danger, make a procession 
worth looking at. But as the darkness falls and 
night comes on, fears are no strangers to that com- 


316 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


pany. The night may bring attacks of wild beasts, 
or still more vicious men. ‘‘Uneasy lies the head 
that wears the crown.’’ That old proverb has done 
service for a long time and bids fair to do service 
a good while yet. It is our sorrow and shame that 
three of our own Presidents have died at the hand 
of the assassin, and no man in great place of power 
feels entirely free from ‘‘the fear in the night.’’ 
This explains the guard about the king, the tried 
soldiers, expert in war, who guard Solomon and 
give him safety and peace. 

Perhaps you are saying, What message can this 
have for us? We are neither kings nor queens, 
and no one is seeking our lives. And yet is it not 
true that every one of us has known the terror of 
the ‘‘fear in the night’’? Have you never known 
what it meant to be in the night of trouble, and to 
have a multitude of the ghosts of possible sorrows 
and miseries throng about you and threaten you 
with their keen weapons? Have you never known 
the night of sickness, the night of doubt, when ‘‘the 
fear in the night’’ brought agony that was hard to 
still? There are terrors of this sort from which no 
money can buy respite, and no learning and no 
strength can give assurance of safety. What are 
the sentinels, then, that the soul may summon to 
stand guard in all the emergencies of life—senti- 


THE SENTINELS OF THE SOUL 317 


nels with such skill and courage and power that the 
soul shall be free from the terror born of ‘‘the 
fear in the night?’’ I think it will do us good to 
look at some of these sentinels that are within the 
reach of every human soul and who may be sum- 
moned to guard us and give us peace. 


I 


The first sentinel of the soul, that which it seems 
to me must always be of most value in bringing us 
true peace and safety, is a clear conviction of the 
dignity of the human soul, a conviction that we 
are dear to God and that he cares for us more 
than he cares for the mountains or the plains or 
the rivers. Make a man believe that and you have 
gone a long way to guard him from the panic that 
comes from ‘‘fear in the night.”’ 

There is a picture called by the painter ‘‘The 
Return of the Flock.’’ The sky is marvelously de- 
picted, gorgeous in its coloring, and the splendor of 
the setting sun is thrown back upon the screen with 
wonderful skill. There is a little village in the 
valley, the smoke rolling loosely but gracefully 
above the chimneys, the brook with the willows 
upon the banks, the outstretching meadows, the 
country road going down the hill toward the vil- 
lage, the flock of sheep moving on to the comfort of 


318 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


the sheepfold—all this beautifully indicates the re- 
markable power of the artist. But all this is de- 
signed only to lead us to the central point in the 
picture—behind the flock the shepherd lad, with 
his slouched hat drawn down over the mystery that 
is the vital art of the pictured life, and in which the 
whole picture has its reason for existence. Looking 
at it you cannot but recall what Jesus said, ‘‘ How 
much then is a man of more value than a sheep!’’ 

Man’s greatest guard against folly must be this 
high conception of himself as a being worth while 
and capable of great things. If man is insignifi- 
cant and little, a beast only, then he can afford to 
waste himself on any trifle. Robert Browning in 
one of his lines speaks of ‘‘all hell let loose on a 
butterfly.”” And we see people let loose all the 
passions of the heart about something that is of no 
more importance than a butterfly. If we are to be 
saved from such things we must have a nobler con- 
viction concerning ourselves. a 

Tennyson, in his picture of the magie Hall of 
Camelot, shows us four great zones or belts of 
sculpture. On the lowest belt he represents beasts 
slaying men. On the next higher, men are slaying 
beasts. On the third are warriors, perfect men; 
while on the highest are men with growing wings; 
and over all, the ideal men, beckoning upward to 


THE SENTINELS OF THE SOUL 319 


those beneath. This is a powerful parable of the 
worth of man and his ability to grow toward higher 
things. David, in the eighth Psalm, deals with this 
‘same thought when he says: ‘‘When I consider 
thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and 
the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, 
that thou art mindful of him? And the son of 
man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made 
him a little lower than the angels, and hast 
crowned him with glory and honor. Thou makest 
him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; 
thou hast put all things under his feet: all sheep 
and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the fields; the fowl 
of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever 
passeth through the paths of the sea. O Lord, 
our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the 
earth!’’ Now to David’s view when he wrote this 
Psalm man had already tamed the wild beasts. 
He had made the ox his slave. He had almost sad- 
dled the winds to his chariot. He had harnessed 
the fury of the fire, and found a way for his com- 
merce in the seas. But nothing of this exhibition 
of dominion stirred the heart of David so much 
as the consciousness that God thought upon him 
and visited him. And it is true that that which 
testifies to man’s greatness most is not that he can 
conquer the wild beasts of the forests, or even the 


320 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


wild beasts in his own heart, great as that is; but 
the greatest thing that you can say of him is that 
he can hold communion with God, and walk the 
path of life serene in the consciousness that the 
eternal God is his Father and his Friend. It is the 
supreme glory of our Christianity that it brings 
man to a knowledge of himself and of the divine 
worth that is in him. 

A traveler in South Africa stopt one day at 
the door of a settler’s dwelling, at which a boy was 
amusing himself throwing stones. One of the 
stones fell at the traveler’s feet; he picked it up 
and was in the act of laughingly throwing it back 
to the boy, when something in the stone flashed 
and set his heart beating fast with excitement. The 
child was playing with a diamond as a common 
stone; the settler’s foot had kicked it aside; the 
wheel of the ox-cart had crusht it; but this man 
with eyes skilled for precious stones saw in it the 
priceless jewel. So men were dealing with one 
another as tho they were common stones of the 
earth, when Jesus came and saw in the poorest and 
humblest of humanity the image of God that might 
be restored. Some one says we are glib to repeat 
Carlyle’s morbid nonsense of contempt for a man 
‘‘saving,’’ as he puts it, ‘‘his own miserable soul.’’ 
But only the unsaved soul is miserable. The un- 


’ 


ae 


THH SENTINELS OF THE SOUL 321 


saved soul is only a partial, a diseased, soul. The 
saved soul is the healthy child, capable of growth 
into the image of God. The saved soul is the jewel 
taken from the mine, in the hand of the craftsman, 
to be cut and polished, that it may be set in the 
crown of the King. The saved soul is the paint on 
the palette, being swiftly blended into some glori- 
ous picture on the artist’s canvas. My friend, sit at 
the feet of Jesus and learn the value of your soul, 
and that conviction will stand as a guard to keep 
you from the haunting ‘‘fears in the night.’’ 


II 

A second sentinel which God himself has set at 
the door of every human heart on the threshold of 
life, to keep watch over man’s safety and peace, 
is what has been called the instinct of moral 
danger. Dr. Robertson Nicoll declares that the 
sense of the soul’s value makes the soul protect it- 
self against peril. How this should be is one of the 
mysteries in our nature, but, strange as are its 
workings, the instinct is both constant and char- 
acteristic. This seems to be true not only of man, 
but of all God’s creatures. Most living things 
shrink from contact with plants or animals that 
would injure them. Even the insects share it. 
Hereditary associations keep them from visiting 


322 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


certain flowers which would poison them. In- 
stinet warns them, as in a higher form it warns our- 
selves, against that which is evil and corrupting. 
Cardinal Newman once said, ‘‘It is one great se- 
curity against sin, to be shocked at it.’? We are 
born with an innocence that instinctively recoils 
at the touch of sin. Conscience forewarns us 
against certain associations and makes us feel un- 
comfortable in the company of people whose spirit 
is evil. These dislikes may be vague, we are not 
always able to explain them or to put them into 
words, but they are nevertheless instincts planted 
in our very nature to protect us. We need to 
cherish with the greatest possible fidelity this senti- 
nel which God has placed for our protection, for it 
is easy to break it down and destroy it. There is 
an old fable which tells of a blacksmith who curst 
because the hot iron burned his hand, and wished 
that some power would harden his skin so that it 
would be incapable of pain. And the fable tells 
us that the evil spirit that waits upon such wishes 
came from the neighboring wood, and rendered his 
flesh insensible to heat or cold, and the blacksmith 
foolishly rejoiced. He grasped the metal boldly, 
but ere he was aware of it his hand was now seared 
and charred to the bone. The loss of sensitiveness 
had become a curse to him. So we are tempted 


THE SENTINELS OF THE SOUL 323 


sometimes to wish that our spirits were not so 
responsive to pain, sorrow, and temptation; but 
this sensitiveness is our one hope of soul-enriching 
and ultimate victory over these things. A petri- 
fied conscience is the sure precursor of a destroyed 
soul. To tremble and shrink from evil is the 
prophecy of its power yet being broken. 

If we allow this natural instinct of moral danger 
to become dulled or hardened through indifference 
to its recoil against what is evil, we throw ourselves 
open to the enemy of our souls. Isaiah tells us that 
while some people are bound by sins that are like 
cart ropes that anybody can see, others are first 
bound with iniquity as with cords of vanity, light, 
gossamer, tender threads. When the Lilliputians 
wanted to bind down Gulliver in servitude they 
began with gossamer threads, and went on and on 
until the giant was captured. Tennyson, in his 
“Palace of Sin,’’ describes a young man when he 
first goes into the dominion of sin. The tempter 
comes and leads him by the curl on his forehead. 
He leads him by his vanity, by his pride. If he 
does not recoil from this delicate seduction to evil, 
the day will come when he will be led by cart ropes 
that can be seen a block away by every passerby. 
But if that sentinel is kept on guard, what peace 
to the soul within! There is no ‘‘fear in the 


324 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


night’’ that can ruffle the soul at whose gate stands 
Innocence with the sword upon his thigh. 


Ill 


Another sturdy sentinel equipped with invinci- 
ble armor to defend the soul from ‘‘the fear in the 
night’’ is a consciousness that we are doing right, 
that our lives are pleasing to God. A vast deal of 
the restlessness, and uneasiness, and the kind of 
fears that crowd out peace, comes from a conscious- 
ness that our lives are out of harmony with God, 
that we are not doing our duty. No amount ot 
gayety and surface pleasures can take the place of 
conscious rectitude. A great many people are very 
gay at times, and very miserable afterward, simply 
because their lives are not mastered by any high 
purpose and they have a conviction that they are 
wasting themselves. Balzac, the great French 
writer, puts this truth very clearly when he says, 
‘‘ After all, what is less pleasing than a house of 
pleasure?’’ And no one ever yet has tried making 
life simply a round of enjoyment, no matter how 
refined or cultivated, but he has come to Solomon’s 


final decision, that ‘‘ All is vanity and vexation of — 
spirit.’’ If the soul is to have a conviction of © 


safety and of peace, it must come from a conscious- 
ness that it pleases God. That assurance banishes 


THE SENTINELS OF THE SOUL 325 


“the fear in the night.’ Christ’s teaching is very 
plain on this point. He says, ‘‘Every one that 
doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the 
light, lest his deeds should be reproved.’’ And 
again, ‘‘He that doeth truth cometh to the light, 
that his deeds may be made manifest.’’ You will 
notice the positive word there, ‘‘Doeth.’’ Many 
people are haunted by fears who are not active 
sinners, but who do not ‘‘do’’ the right which 
appeals to them. As Dr. O. P. Gifford says, that 
word “‘doeth’’ means practising. ‘‘Many people 
spend their time practising trifles, wasting oppor- 
tunities, living an unreal, aimless life, wandering, 
not walking; drifting, not rowing; rotting, not 
growing.’’ 

You know what it is to practise law, medicine, 
to give life to the professions; some men practise 
idleness, dawdle, trifle; do not waste substance in 
riotous living, but in a moral way they do nothing. 
God has so made the world that such people can- 
not be happy permanently. Jesus says, ‘‘My 
father worketh hitherto, and I work.’’ The world 
is saved by work. ‘‘ Work out your own salvation 
with fear and trembling,’’ says the Holy Book, 
**for it is God which worketh in you both to will 
and to do of his good pleasure.’’ The man that does 
the will of God day by day is not without an armed 


326 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


sentinel standing at the door of his soul to guard 
his peace. Two of the most beautiful expressions to 
be found in the Psalms are these: ‘‘I will both lay 
me down in peace and sleep,’’ that is, when you are 
going to bed and going to sleep; and ‘‘When I 
awake, I am still with thee.’’ What a picture it 
brings to the mind. A mother is putting her child 
to bed at night. What is the last thing that the 
child sees? He looks up into his mother’s face. 
Her face grows less and less distinct. The child’s 
eyelids fall, there is nothing more. Then, in the 
morning, the light comes in, and the child lifts up 
his eyes, and he sees the same mother’s face. 
‘“When I awake, I am still with thee.’’ That is the 
way God is always waiting for the man who is 
conscious that he is doing the will of his Heavenly 
Father. He is waiting for us to wake; more than 
that, he is coming with the sunbeams to waken us. 
And there can come no night of trouble, no night 
of perplexity, no night of old age, that shall have 
haunting fears strong enough to break through the 
sentinels that guard such a soul. Some of you look 
forward, it may be, with a certain shrinking and 
sense of fear to the time when ‘‘the pale horse and 
his rider’’ shall stand before your gate, and you 
shall be called into the shadows of the dying. But 
tho you fear it now, you will not fear it then, 


THE SENTINELS OF THE SOUL 327 


if you live now in the sweet consciousness that you 
are doing God’s will and to the best of your ability 
the work that he gives you to do. The old Shepherd 
Psalm will be realized in us, and we shall be able 
to make our own its precious utterance, ‘‘Tho 
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 
I will fear no evil; for thou art with me: thy rod 
and thy staff, they comfort me.’’ 

I am sure I speak to many who need this great 
message. Your souls are restless and uneasy. No 
success in business, no associations with thoughtless 
friends, no exhilaration of spirit can save you from 
forebodings and fears that often drive peace from 
your pillow. 

I am glad to bring you the message of God, your 
Heavenly Father, who loves you; the message of 
Jesus Christ who redeemed you, that only in good- 
ness, in complete surrender to righteousness, in 
doing with all your heart the will of God is there 
assurance of a guard for your soul that will give 
you the peace that ‘‘passeth all understanding.’’ 
In such a life only can you be secure in all the 
emergencies that can come to you. With such con- 
fidence no storm that can beat upon your head will 
rob your heart of its sense of security. The poet’s 
song of the bird singing in the rain may then be- 
come your song: 


328 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


“He began his song in the sunshine, 
For the world was fair to see, 

And his little heart o’erflowing 
With love and melody. 


“The starry flowers of the meadow 
Looked up at him and smiled, 
And the sky was blue above him 

As the guileless eyes of a child. 


“But soon across the heavens 
Was drawn a cloudy pall, 

The sunlight fled affrighted, 
And the rain began to fall. 


“The flowers were bent and broken 
Beneath the stress and strain, 
But the bird sang on undaunted 
Amid the driving rain. 
* * * * * * * 


“Tt is easy to sing in the sunshine, 
When the soul can gaze above 

Thro a veil of cloudless azure 
Right into the face of Love. 


“When tender hearts surround us 
And eyes that smile in ours, 

In the morn of life’s brief summer, 
In the dewy time of flowers. 


“But when the storm is raging, 
And hearts once gay are bowed, 
Give me the faith that seeth 
The light beyond the cloud. 
“The love that never faileth 
Thro doubt, or grief, or pain: 
The dauntless hope that dareth 
To sing amid the rain.” 


THE DIVINE ROMANCE IN 
CHRISTIAN CHARACTER 


THE DIVINE ROMANCE IN 
CHRISTIAN CHARACTER 


“Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly 
above all that we ask or think, according to the power 
that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by 
Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.”— 
Ephesians III: 20-21. 


HAVE heard the story of a great Welsh 

preacher, celebrated for his eloquence, who was 
preaching in English to a large congregation in 
London. His soul was.in his message. It flashed in 
his eye, it fired his tongue, and he was so exalted by 
the nobility of his theme, and the thoughts within 
him burned and breathed at such a rate, that the 
English language would not do, and he paused a 
moment and said, ‘‘Oh, if you only understood 
Welsh!’’ He felt that he would have been able, in 
his more familiar tongue, to climb somewhat higher 
toward the point he aimed at. When you read 
Paul’s wonderful sentences you cannot but feel 
that he had a similar thought. He exhausts the 
resources of language, and then he says, in sub- 
stance: ‘‘It is not enough.’’ It reminds us of that 


331 


332 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WOW SOULS 


other wonderful utterance of his in which he com- 
pares the light afflictions of the present with the 
glory of the future, exclaiming: ‘‘For our light 
affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for 
us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory.’’ And if we analyze this scripture which 
we are to study we shall find that it will take a 
long time to read it. Let us look into it for a 
moment. ‘‘God is able.’’ That is a most significant 
sentence, but there is more yet. ‘‘God is able to 
do.’’ Plenty of people can boast. ‘‘God is able to 
do.’’ Then Paul goes farther and says: ‘‘God is 
able to do abundantly.’’ Then his vision expands, 
the horizon widens, and he rejoices: ‘‘God is able 
to do exceeding abundantly.’’ Then he goes a step 
farther. ‘‘God is able to do exceeding abundantly 
all.’’ Then his courage grows, and he takes an- 
other step: ‘‘God is able to do exceeding abun- 
dantly above all.’’ Surely, you think, he is at the 
end of his tether now. But he is not. ‘God is able 
to do exceeding abundantly above all that we 
ask.’’ Then he takes one last flight on the wings 
of thought, but still he cannot reach the bounds of 
God’s power to bless his children, and exclaims: 
‘God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all 
that we ask or think.’’ Here he flung down his 
pen, like the Welsh preacher who ceased to try in 


—— 


a 


THE DIVINE ROMANCE 333 


a foreign tongue, with a feeling that it was im- 
possible to describe the ability of God to work 
wonders in a human heart and life. 

One writer commenting on these wonderful ut- 
terances says that Paul climbed up the ladder to 
the very highest rung that words could take him; 
and then he got on a higher ladder, and climbed 
up as far as thoughts could take him; and then he 
wanted Jacob’s ladder to reach to the throne of 
God in order to tell us what God will do for any 
man who says in his heart, ‘‘Be my God.’’ 


I 

The romance of Christian character lies in the 
fact that God is working in men and women to 
produce a personality more saintly and more heroic 
than any man in cool blood without the assurance 
of spiritual aid believes possible. Many men look- 
ing on the life of Jesus, while they are full of ad- 
miration and reverence, look upon that wonderful 
life as they look upon a snow mountain, as some- 
thing standing apart, too good for human nature’s 
daily food. But the hope of humanity rests in the 
great truth that the life of Christ, the character of 
Jesus, is only a sample personality, a sample career, 
and every man and woman is called upon by the 
Spirit of God to seek to reproduce that character 


334 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


and that career under the circumstances of their 
own lives. If Christianity were a mere creed, it 
would amount to nothing. Thank God, it is more 
than that. It is a life, and the value of Chris- 
tianity to you and to me will be measured only by 
the extent to which we live it. The glory of our 
religion is in the transformed life which it shows 
to the world. The doctrines of Christ are only 
explained in full comprehension to men who live 
like Jesus. Christ says: ‘‘If any man will do his 
will, he shall know of the doctrine.’’ God is ready 
to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask 
or think when we undertake to live the life of 
Jesus. Practise makes perfect in Christianity as 
in everything else. Prof. Henry Drummond once 
said: ‘‘What makes a man a good cricketer? 
Practise. What makes a man a good sculptor, a 
good artist, a good musician? Practise. What 
makes a man a good man? Practise.’’ There is no 
magic or trick about the Christian religion. When 
we turn our faces toward Christ and seek to re- 
produce his life in our own, all the powers of the 
universe work together to bring about our triumph, 
and every man that gives himself with whole- 
hearted surrender to that work always succeeds 
beyond his dreams. 

Do you remember that morning when the time 


THE DIVINE ROMANCE 335 


had come for Elijah’s translation? Elisha started 
forth with his master, and the young prophets 
called to him in a mocking mood: ‘‘Knowest thou 
not that thy master is to be taken away from thee 
to-day? Surely it were better for thee to stay with 
us than to accompany a man who will vanish out of 
sight.’” ‘‘Oh! I know,’’ Elisha replied, ‘‘but I 
shall go with him as far as I can.’’ And so with 
trembling heart, but with deep, abiding, loving 
purpose to keep close to Elijah until the end of his 
journey, he crossed the river with him. That day 
Elijah mounted to heaven in a chariot of fire. The 
next day Elijah’s mantle was worn by another 
man, but by whom? By one of those overwise, 
careful, prudent fellows? No, indeed! It was worn 
by Elisha. And if you want to wear the mantle 
of Jesus Christ, you must surrender yourself to a 
complete following after him. The power of God 
will work in you as you work the will of God. 

Some of you will recall how Longfellow brings 
out this thought in his ‘‘Legend Beautiful.’’ The 
monk was kneeling on the stone floor of his cell, 
bowed in deep contrition, when 


“Suddenly, as if it lightened, 
An unwonted splendor brightened 
All within him and without him 
In that narrow cell of stone; 


336 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


And he saw the Blest Vision 

Of our Lord, with light Elysian 
Like a vesture wrapt about him, 
Like a garment round him thrown. 


“Not as crucified and slain, 

Not in agonies of pain, 

Not with bleeding hands and feet, 
Did the monk his Master see; 
But as in the village street, 
In the house or harvest-field, 
Halt and lame and blind he healed, 
When he walked in Galilee. 


“Tn an attitude imploring, 

Hands upon his bosom crossed, 
Wondering, worshiping, adoring, 

Knelt the monk, in rapture lost. 

Lord, he thought, in heaven that reignest, 
Who am I, that thus thou deignest 

To reveal thyself to me? 

Who am I, that from the center 

Of thy glory thou shouldst enter 

This poor cell, my guest to be? 


“Then amid his exaltation, 

Loud the convent bell appalling, 
From its belfry calling, calling, 
Rang through court and corridor 
With persistent iteration 

He had never heard before. 


“Tt was now the appointed hour 
When, alike in shine or shower, 
Winter’s cold or summer’s heat, 
To the convent portals came 
All the blind and halt and lame, 


a 


* 


—_——_— = 


Tl? _-« 


THE DIVINE ROMANCE 337 


All the beggars of the street, 
For their daily dole of food 
Dealt them by the brotherhood; 
And their almoner was he 

Who upon his bended knee, 

Rapt in silent ecstasy 

Of divinest self-surrender, 

Saw the Vision and the Splendor. 


“Deep distress and hesitation 
Mingled with his adoration; 
Should he go or should he stay? 
Should he leave the poor to wait 
Hungry at the convent gate, 

Till the Vision passed away? 
Should he slight his radiant guest, 
Slight this visitant celestial, 

For a crowd of ragged, bestial 
Beggars at the convent gate? 
Would the Vision there remain? 
Would the Vision come again? 
Then a voice within his breast 
Whispered, audible and clear, 
As if to the outward ear: 

‘Do thy duty; that is best; 
Leave unto the Lord the rest!’” 


Straightway he started to his feet and with lin- 
gering gaze upon the Vision he went to the convent 
gate and ministered to the necessities of the poor 
and the suffering. Then, still wondering as to 
whether he had done right, he turned his face 
anew toward his cell; and, behold! the convent was 
bright with a supernatural light. 


338 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


“But he paused with awestruck feeling 
At the threshold of his door, 

For the Vision still was standing 

As he left it there before, ’ 
When the convent bell appalling, 

From its belfry calling, calling, 
Summoned him to feed the poor. 
Through the long hour intervening 

It had waited his return, 

And he felt his bosom burn, 
Comprehending all the meaning, 

When the Blessed Vision said, 

‘Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled!” 

Let us get the great lesson deeply rooted in our 
hearts, that if we would have God present in our 
hearts and lives, working in us, to will and to do of 
his own good pleasure, building up holy and attrac- 
tive character, we must make it the habit of our 
lives to fashion our living after the Christ who 


went about doing good. 


II 

The Divine Power that worketh in us in the 
building of Christian character is not interested 
so much in our temporary circumstances as in final 
results. Here is where many people make mistake. 
Many an arrogant man who is making money 
fondly imagines that God is pleased with him be- 
cause he is. prosperous in business, and many a 
sincere poor man, whose business has gone all awry, 


THE DIVINE ROMANCE 339 


is cast down and discouraged because he has ex- 
perienced adversity, thinking God is displeased 
with him. Both these men are mistaken. Many 
another Dives, whose heart is as hard as the man 
whom Jesus pictures, fares sumptuously every day, 
while many another man as good as Lazarus goes 
bankrupt. But that is only a small fragment of 
the picture. Christ draws aside the veil and shows 
that in the great immortality Lazarus associates 
with the noblest and highest in heaven, while Dives 
is gnawed and haunted by remorse. God is build- 
ing men and women to live forever, and many a 
man whom the world calls a failure is in the eyes 
of God a stupendous success, and many another 
whom the world envies as a successful man will 
come after a while to know himself as a tragic fail- 
ure. Ruskin says: ‘‘The only failure a man needs 
to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he 
knows to be the best.’ This is one of the great 
truths we need always to keep in mind, for human 
life is honeyecombed with illustrations of it. 

I have seen a story of a woman, a mother, who 
when she was dying called her eldest daughter to 
her side and said, ‘‘ You will stop with the children 
until they are wed, and you will care for your 
father.’’ She said, ‘‘Yes, mother; I will.’’ She 
did not know what she was promising. Shortly 


340 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


after, love looked in at the window of her life, and 
said, ‘‘Will you follow me; will you wed me?’’ 
And she loved, and her heart leapt out to the love 
of her life. Love said: ‘‘ Will you come now?” “‘I 
eannot.’’ ‘‘Make haste!’’ ‘‘I cannot; I must stay 
here.’’ ‘‘Then I cannot wait.’’ And the love faded 
away and her heart died. And she pursued her 
path, a lonely woman. The boys married, the girls 
went into homes of their own, and the father died, 
blessing her for her care. And in late middle life 
she looked around upon other girls whom she had 
known, in their happy homes; and often her heart 
felt sadness as it cried, ‘‘Never for me.’’ But as 
she went to and fro among those children, and 
the babes were called by her name, and the little 
boys and the young fellows grew up almost to wor- 
ship the ground on which she walked, she came to 
be the queen of the whole family, and came to know 
that no self-sacrifice, no honest effort to serve in 
God’s name, ever fails in the building of our lives. 

Perhaps nowhere in modern literature is the ulti- 
mate object of life drawn more clearly than in that 
wonderful poem on old age, by Robert Browning, 
which he calls ‘‘Rabbi Ben Hzra.’’ It opens with 
the bold challenge: 


“Grow old along with me! 
The best is yet to be, 


THE DIVINE ROMANCE 341 


The last of life, for which the first was made: 

Our times are in His hand, 

Who saith, ‘A whole I planned, 
Youth shows but half; trust God; see all, nor be afraid.’ ” 
Then the poet faces this very thought which we are 
studying—the fact that adversity, hard struggle, 
and inequalities of worldly fortune are to be taken 
only as accidents and temporary experiences, and 
used as helps to bring about the great result which 
God is seeking to produce in making us noble and 
holy personalities. The poet bravely says: 

“Then, welcome each rebuff 

That turns earth’s smoothness rough, 
Each sting that bids nor sit, nor stand, but go! 

Be our joys three parts pain! 

Strive, and hold cheap the strain; 
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the 

throe!” 

Then the poet takes up the scriptural metaphor of 
the potter’s wheel drawn by Jeremiah, and which 
so many people have thought heartless, and in- 
terprets it, showing how the potter is seeking 
always the final usefulness of the cup which he 
fashions. He begins with tracing the lines in love 
about the base of the cup which he is molding, 
“‘And as he nears the rim he fashions skulls in 
order grim.’’ But all the time he is working toward 
the use to which the cup shall be put; to be held 
by the Master’s hand and used as he will. 


342 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


“What tho the earlier grooves, 
Where ran the laughing loves, 
Around thy base no longer pause and press. 
What tho about thy rim, 
Skull things in order grim 
Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? 
Look not thou down but up 
To uses of a cup, 
The festal board, lamp’s flash, and trumpet’s peal. 
The new wine’s roaming flow, 
The Master’s lips aglow, 
Thou heaven’s consummate cup, what needst thou with 
earth’s wheel!” 

It is impossible to live the noblest life without 
keeping ever in mind that this present life is only 
the vestibule of our career, and that goodness, and 
the building up of character, must hold our com- 
plete loyalty. 

There is an ancient myth which says that upon 
the confines of the earth there is a huge gateway 
which separates this world from the next. All the 
souls of the departed must pass this portal before 
they enter the other world. The gateway has two 
large pillars, one on either side. On the summit of 
these pillars are carved the heads of two massive 
dogs. Each of these dogs has two faces, the one 
looking before, the other looking behind. One faces 
the new world into which the soul enters, the other 
faces the old world from which the soul has come. 
There is in this a vein of eternal truth and a serious 


THH DIVINE ROMANCE 343 


warning for the Christian who has failed to give 
whole-hearted devotion to the Christian life. One 
face regards the glories of the spiritual world. The 
other is set upon the things of this world. But 
when men play the double part they are doomed to 
certain tragedy in the spiritual life. The Christ 
who died to redeem you deserves and must have all 
your love. If he would work his purpose in you, 
he must reign supreme in your soul and in your 
life. 

I have gone before now into a great factory, full 
of noisy, clanging, roaring looms, and the con- 
ductor has taken me from room to room, showing 
me many interesting things. In the midst of the 
factory I have sometimes found a room with en- 
trances leading to it from all the great halls in 
which was the machinery and the hundreds of busy 
workers. And I have found that that room, in the 
heart of the factory, was where the manager sat at 
his desk. There he was in instant communication 
with every department. He had power to control 
every one and could call any one to him in a 
moment. The will of this one man dominated every- 
thing. Every worker, every loom, every spindle, 
was silent, or awhirl with life, at his beck or nod. 
My friend, as God looks down into your heart to- 
day what does he see? Who sits in the manager’s 


344 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


room of your soul! If Christ is there, controlling 
your thoughts, your words, your actions, then every 
good thing that is possible to man, that is good 
enough to be true, can be realized in you, since he 
that worketh in you is able to do exceeding abun- 
dantly above all you can ask or think. Let us con- 
secrate ourselves anew to-day to the full and com- 
plete building of Christian character, to the su- 
preme purpose which God has for us in all worlds. 
And if we do that, we cannot do better than to 
make our own the prayer of dedication with which 
Browning causes old Rabbi Ben Ezra to conclude 
his philosophy of life: 

“So take and use Thy work, 

Amend what flaws may lurk, 
What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past the aim! 

My times be in Thy hand! 

Perfect the cup as planned! 
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!” 


CONTACT WITH GOD 
THE SOUL’S 
SUPREME NECESSITY 


SR 


x) 
Fa 
z 


eo 


CONTACT WITH GOD THE 
SOUL’S SUPREME NECESSITY 


“And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that 
he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold! there stood 
a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: 
and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou 
for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but 
as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And 
Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and 
said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? 
And the captain of the Lord’s host said unto Joshua, Loose 
thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou 
standest is holy. And Joshua did so.”—Joshua V: 13-15. 

HE supreme hour of Joshua’s life was fast ap- 

proaching. He was in a singularly lonely posi- 
tion. Of all the men and women who had marched 
out of Egypt forty years before under Moses, he 
was, save Caleb, the only one left. All the rest had 
fallen by the wayside in the wilderness. It was a 
new army of young men and young women which 
he led. During all the years of their pilgrimage 
Moses had been leader. Now he was gone. Aaron 
and Miriam were dead, and on Joshua’s shoulders 
was laid the task of leadership. He had crossed 


the Jordan and cut off his retreat. Swollen by 
347 


348 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


floods, the river ran at his back, and yonder were 
the frowning walls of Jericho, against which he 
was to lead his empty-handed army. In such an 
hour Joshua’s greatest necessity was God. No one 
else could advise him and guide him. The pillar 
of cloud which had led them by day, and the pillar 
of fire which had preceded them by night, had 
gone. The heavenly manna had ceased to fall. 
In this solemn hour, with enemies upon every side 
of him, and no human forces with which to contend 
against them, the heart of Joshua must have cried 
out for the leadership of God, for communion and 
fellowship with him. Nothing else could give him 
peace. And it was at such an hour that God re- 
vealed himself in this interesting and remarkable 
way. The courage of Joshua stands out splendidly 
in the incident. When he sees the Man in the 
vision, he marches directly to him with the ques- 
tion, ‘‘Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?”’ 
His brave soul was ever ready to dare his fate, 
trusting in God. 


I 


We need to find in this interesting story a pro- 
found lesson for ourselves. Contact with God is 
always the soul’s supreme necessity. The story is 
told of how Dante, wandering one day over the 


CONTACT WITH GOD 349 


mountains, drew nigh to a lone secluded monas- 
tery. It was at a time when his mind was racked 
with internal conflicts and was seeking refuge from 
the strife. So he knocked loudly at the monastery 
gate. It was opened by a monk, who in a single 
glance at the wan, pale face read its pathetic mes- 
sage of misery and wo. ~““What do you seek 
here?’’ said he. .And- with a gesture of despair 
the poet replied, ‘‘Peace.’’ Ah, it was the same 
old craving, followed by the same old search; but 
neither the solitary places nor the monk’s cell ever 
brought true peace to the afflicted heart. It comes 
not from without, but from within. We can have 
it in the winter of age or in the spring of youth; in 
the lowly cottage or in the stately mansion; in dis- 
tressing pain or in buoyant health. The secret of 
the soul’s satisfaction, of its perfect peace, comes 
in comradeship with God. Christ said to his dis- 
ciples that tho in the world they should have 
tribulation they should still have peace in him. 
Joshua found it true under the walls of Jericho, 
and you may find it true to-day under the frown- 
ing difficulties which face your to-morrow. 


II 


We learn from this theme that God ofttimes 
meets men unexpectedly. Tho Joshua’s need was 


350 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


so great, the revelation of God which came to 
him in this vision came without any expectation 
or forethought on his part. The woman of Samaria 
who gave Jesus a drink at the well of Sychar came 
carelessly down with her water-pot, having no 
thought that the great sunrise of her life was at 
hand. And so it is that God often comes unex- 
pectedly to meet us in great and wonderful revela- 
tion of himself. A Christian poetess of our time 
has told us in one of her poems that at a public 
reception, among many pictures on the walls of 
the palace, there was one which specially looked 
out on her, and held her spellbound all the even- 
ing. It was a picture of Christ as a King, treading 
the wine-press alone. Amid the hundred lights 
that gleamed on the faces of the guests, and the 
pictures on which scenes of beauty had been 
prisoned for their pleasure, and the sweet tide of 
music that rolled through the room, she tells us: 

“Suddenly face to face with Him I stood 

Who is not very far at any time 

From those who love Him.” 
She had no eyes during the rest of the evening 
for anything or any one save the Christ who, 
amid the crowds that came and went with the 
music, and that knew him not, seemed alone, ter- 
ribly alone. So God comes to men and women to- 


Sa 


ee) 


CONTACT WITH GOD 351 


day. Sometimes in sorrow, sometimes in joy, some- 
times in the midst of gayety, and again in the 
hush of the house of prayer. My brother, if he 
comes, meet him as Joshua did, with brave and 
worshipful welcome. 


III 

I think we ought learn from our theme that God 
is most likely to come to the soul when life is 
hushed and quiet, in the hour of meditation, when 
the heart may listen. Joshua seems to have been 
alone, contemplating the frowning walls of the 
great city, which stood over against him, wonder- 
ing how he should bring them to the ground. And 
it was in the midst of this meditation, when his 
life was hushed into stillness, that God appeared 
to him. If we would meet with God and have com- 
munion with him, we must have our times of medi- 
tation and secret fellowship with our Heavenly 
Father. The greatest workers and the most pow- 
erful thinkers that the world has ever known have 
been men who every day had their set hour for 
secret fellowship with God. Such times furnish 
the life-blood of all true greatness and true good- 
ness. There is no doubt in my mind that the rush 
and hurry of modern life have not stabbed the 
church of Christ anywhere so deeply as in the 


352 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


tempting of thousands of Christians from the old- 
fashioned habit of secret prayer, a habit as old- 
fashioned as Jesus’s talk about the closet and the 


shut door, and the prayer in secret that should be ~ 


rewarded openly. I never speak on this subject 
but my heart grows tender and warm. My mother 
had a large family of children, and in the midst 
of the care for them all maintained great calm 
and sweetness of spirit. I was the eldest, and I 
used to wonder how she did it. My two sisters 
next in age to me, and myself, had noticed that 
every afternoon she went for an hour into a thicket 
not far from the house, and that a little later we 
heard her talking to some one, and that she always 
came out of that thicket singing, with her face 
shining like the sun. And so one day we followed 
her and crept under the trees until, ourselves un- 
noticed, we could see what she was doing. First 
she opened her Bible and read two or three chap- 
ters, and then she kneeled on the ground and began 
to pray. She prayed for her children by name, 
one after another, and all our faults, and all her 
love, and all her hope in God for us, were poured 
forth in petition and tears. Before she was 
through we were all crying. But she prayed on 
until evidently the captain of the Lord’s host met 
her, for when she came out again her face was all 


CONTACT WITH GOD ’ 353 


aglow with joy, and she sang with the gladness of 
a bird in spring-time. God had spoken to her. 
It is in these secret, still places of meditation and 
prayer that strength is renewed. Some one sings 
a song of that prophet’s chamber which the Shunam- 
mite woman had built for Elisha. It was only a 


“Tittle chamber’ built ‘upon the wall,’ 

With stool and table, candlestick and bed, 
Where he might sit, or kneel, or lay his head, 

At night or sultry noontide; this was all 

A prophet’s need: but in that chamber small 
What mighty prayers arose, what grace was shed; 
What gifts were given, potent to wake the dead, 

And from its viewless flight a soul recall! 


“‘And still what miracles of grace are wrought 
In many a lonely chamber with shut door, 
Where God our Father is in secret sought, 
And shows himself in mercy more and more! 
Dim upper rooms with God’s own glory shine, 
And souls are lifted to the life divine.” 


IV 

I think we should emphasize in our hearts the 
fact illustrated by this remarkable story, that God 
always comes when we need him, if our hearts are 
ready to respond in reverent obedience. Joshua 
soon found that the man with the drawn sword had 
not come to fight as a private in the ranks, but as 
captain of the Lord’s host. He also learned that 
God demands our reverence. The call to put off 


354 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


his shoes from his feet, because the place whereon 
he was standing was holy ground, suggests the 
very important truth that worship comes before 
service. We shall never be strong to do God’s will 
until with reverence and love we worship God and 
come into perfect harmony with the spirit and 
purposes of God. One great reason why so much 
of the work of the Christian church to-day is a 
comparative failure and seems to produce little 
effect for good, is that it is often service without 
worship. Service, however humble, tho it be no 
more than a cup of cold water to the thirsty, when 
rendered in a tender, reverent, worshipful spirit 
toward God and Christ, has about it a heavenly 
magic, a divine electricity that is irresistible. 
But the greatest lesson of all, still left for us 
to learn, is that obedience to any message or vision 
which comes to us from God is necessary to insure 
the blessing which God seeks to bring to us. Many 
people have wonderful dreams and visions and 
opportunities, and yet nothing ever comes of them 
for lack of obedience. Dr. Hillis says that many 
years ago, in Paris, he made the round of the 
studios. One day an artist friend took him into a 
garret. Going up the steps the artist told him 
that he would show him the most glorious dreamer 
in France. \He found the low eeiling of that 


CONTACT WITH GOD 355 


attie covered with pencil sketches; every inch of 
the walls and the very floor were plastered over 
with outlines. Every morning found the artist at 
his canvas. In one ceaseless procession the visions 
passed before him—angels, seraphs, sunsets, trees, 
castles, scarred cliffs, golden clouds, palace, hut, 
canoe, ocean steamer, mound, volcano, peasant, 
prince, tropic luxuries—ten thousand sketches— 
not one of them complete. A thousand dreams and 
faces in the air, but no power to pin them down 
to a canvas and fix them there forever. No artist 
had more glorious visions of beauty, but men with 
one-tenth the imaginative power painted ten times 
the number of pictures and had a hundred times 
the income. The artist who indulged in his dreams 
and lived on his reveries was like multitudes of 
people, inside the church as well as out, who dream 
their dreams of ideal perfection and plan noble 
schemes of helpfulness, but do practically almost 
nothing. Some of you who hear this message have 
been thinking for years of joining the church of 
Christ and putting yourself into open fellowship 
with Jesus, but you have taken it all out in reveries, 
and up to this moment you have done nothing to 
bring yourself into line with the forces of righteous- 
ness. Some of you who are in the church have had 
wonderful visions of duty presented to you, and 


356 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


again and again have had reveries in which you 
planned fine things you were going to do to help 
the church, to strengthen the poor and the weak, 
and charm the sinful to the Savior, but all these 
are only vague clouds, like those of the artist in 
his attic, and your heart is not so easily stirred 
to-day to such aspiration and desire as it was years 
ago. Obedience is the only key which will unlock 
the storehouse of God’s blessings. The man who 
obeys God, about whom it can be said, as is said 
of Joshua in this record, ‘‘Joshua did so,’’ is the 
man who is brought so into fellowship with God 
that something of God’s majesty seems to attend 
him. Hudson Taylor, the great Chinese mission- 
ary, was a man of that sort. He did not impress 
people by a commanding stature, by flights of 
Imagination, or by thrilling eloquence. And yet 
an audience would be spellbound by his unas- 
suming, earnest talks, and the effects of his utter- 
ances were very powerful. ‘‘I am always very 
glad when Mr. Hudson Taylor is out of the place,”’ 
said a mother to a certain minister on one occa- 
sion. ‘‘Why?’’ he asked, with astonishment. The 
reply revealed the influence which the missionary 
carried with him: ‘‘Because I am afraid he will 
run off with my child for China.’’ The fact is, she 
felt she had to do with God when he was there. 


i a, ee 


CONTACT WITH GOD 357 


Vv 


When Joshua in reverent obedience accepted the 
leadership of the captain of the Lord’s host, he 
went forward with the assurance that he had the 
cooperation of Almighty God. He became a man 
allied with the Supreme Power in the universe. 
He became God’s agent for.accomplishing the pur- 
pose dearest to the heart of God, and was therefore 
triumphant in the end over all opposition. The 

-whole history of mankind is filled with illustrations 
of impossible things that have been wrought in and 
through individuals, many of them common men, 
who have been made uncommon in power and in- 
fluence by their obedience to God and their alliance 
with his will. Everything is possible to the man 
who enters into a partnership with God and yields 
perfect obedience to him. 

The story of Christianity is rich in instances 
which prove this true, and we need not fall back 
on the story of the Master or the romantic and 
marvelous success of the early Christians under the 
leadership of Paul and Peter and John for our 
proof. There never has been an age so dark, there 
never has been a race so weak, but there have been 
bright and shining lights, and brave and obedient 
heroes whose alliance with God has given them a 
power and an influence which no merely human 


358 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


forces could possibly have supplied. You may see 
our truth in Martin Luther as he faces the Pope, 
and Emperor, and, indeed, every worldly and 
ecclesiastical power of his day. He was stronger 
than all of his foes because he was obedient unto 
God. You may see it in John Bunyan, an ignorant 
and profane tinker at Bedford; but brought into 
alliance with Heaven, obedient to the heavenly 
vision, he becomes the greatest moral influence of 
his age. You may see it in John Wesley, a humble 
youth whose father was often in jail for debt, but 
who after many wanderings to and fro across the 
ocean and the continent without success, and falling 
into many foolish blunders, at last met the captain 
of the Lord’s host, in reverence put off his shoes 
from his feet, and gave himself with marvelous sur- 
render to be God’s man, and for more than half a 
century poured his life out as an oblation before 
God. Branch after branch of his natural life was 
withered. Men thought, Now he will be cast down 
and destroyed ; but every time the new life rushed 
through all the dead fibers and they blossomed 
again in a nobler beauty. He started the whole 
church of Christ in all denominations and in all 
lands on a new career. Historians agree that he 
saved England from the deluge of blood that had 
swept over France. He started forces into action 


CONTACT WITH GOD 359 


that have belted the globe, and millions upon mil- 
lions of men and women in all parts of the world 
love and revere his name. All things were pos- 
sible with him because of his alliance with God. 

Brothers, sisters, let us enter into partnership 
with Almighty God. No matter how weak we are 
in ourselves, surrendered to him in reverent obedi- 
ence to do his will, nothing can stand against us. 
Joshua became the wonder and the marvel of the 
nations because God was with him. The giants 
of Anak were as nothing before this humble He- 
brew but yesterday a slave, because he went forth 
not in his own strength, but in the power of God. 
Again and again in the years that followed, when 
the odds against him were tremendous, God would 
meet with Joshua in the stillness of the night and 
tell him to have good courage, to be of good cheer, 
to fear not, for he would be with him and nothing 
would be able to stand against him all the days 
of his life. God kept his promise. 

Now, my friends, I would never have courage to 
come into this pulpit again if I did not believe 
with all my heart and soul that God loves me as 
much as he did Joshua, that the people of Denver 
are as dear to the heart of God as were the children 
of Israel, and that if we are reverent, seeking to 
know God’s purpose with open heart, and ready 


eo 
foo aM 


360 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


with quick obedience to do his will, he will lead us 
as surely and as manifestly as Joshua was led by 
him. 

This wicked city needs that we shall be devout 
and earnest, and, above all, obedient to God. Mul- 
titudes of young men and young women, far away 
from home, strangers in a strange land, pursued 
and lured by many new and unusual temptations, 
need above everything else to find in the 
church of Jesus Christ a place where the power, 
and the mercy, and the love of God abound in 
manifestations of helpfulness, and in heavenly 
charm, to hold them back from evil ways and win 
them to the help which is in God. Let us with all 
our hearts and souls enter into partnership with 
God for the blessing and salvation of humanity 
in our city. 

Some months after the death of Mr. D. L. 
Moody his son-in-law was turning over the leaves 
of Mr. Moody’s Bible, when at the fifth and sixth 
chapters of the Gospel by John he found these 
words written by Mr. Moody in the margin: “‘If 
God be your partner, make your plans large.’’ It 
is a very striking and significant sentence. Dr. 
John Robertson, the Scotch evangelist, was so im- 
prest with the sentence that he wrote a strong 
poem about it in which he says: 


CONTACT WITH GOD 361 


“If God be your partner, burning stars are wheeling 
Worlds of help and hope to reinforce your strength; 
If God be your partner, God’s own hand is sealing 
Treasure-trains of years gold-laden all their length! 
You need not hesitate upon the marge, 
Make your plans large! 


“Tf God be your partner, angel-swords are flashing 
Ranks of foes to drive back on their fleeing heel; 
If God be your partner, never heed the clashing 
Spears that threaten blood to drink with stooping steel. 
What need have you of man’s poor shield and targe? 
Make your plans large! 


“Tf God be your partner, ocean waves are bearing 
Sail-filled fleets of rescue and of sure supply. 
If God be your partner, deeps with deeps are sharing 
Glad response to your now haven-seeking cry; 
For you is chartered not a coasting barge— 
Make your plans large! 


“Tf God be your partner, dawns soon day of reckoning— 
Day when God divides with faithfulness his own; 
Ti God be your partner, heaven’s on tip-toe beckoning. 
Race redouble then, go on, and take your throne, 
For God his partnership will fair discharge. 
Make your plans large!” 


THE SUPREMACY 
OF HUMILITY 


Pee RLYy Oe Rea 


SRN VA ThA i 


THE SUPREMACY OF HUMILITY 


“Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your 
servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be min- 
istered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom 
for many.”—Matthew XX: 27-28. 


HILLIPS BROOKS says that the word 
“‘humility’’ itself and its history are interest- 

ing. He recalls what Coleridge said, that ‘‘There 
are cases in which more knowledge, of more value, 
may be conveyed by the history of a word than by 
the history of a campaign.’’ The story of this word 
is one in point. It was not a new word when the 
New Testament was written. It had been used for 
many years. Only it is striking that almost without 
exception the word ‘‘humility,’’ used before the 
time of Christ, is used contemptuously and rebuk- 
ingly. It always meant meanness of spirit. To be 
humble was to be a coward. Where could we find a 
more striking instance of the change that the Chris- 
tian religion brought into the world than in the way 
in which it took this disgraceful word and made it 
honorable? To be humble is to have a low estima- 
tion of one’s self. That was considered shameful in 


365 


366 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


the olden times. Christ came and made the de- 
spised quality the crowning grace of the culture 
that he inaugurated. Lo! the disgraceful word 
became the key-word of his fullest gospel. He re- 
deemed the quality, and straightway the name be- 
came honorable. Think what the change must have 
been. Think with what indignation and contempt 
men of the old school in Rome and Athens must 
have seen mean-spiritedness, as they called it, 
taken up, inculeated and honored, proclaimed as 
the salvation of the world, and him in whom it was 
most singularly embodied made the Savior and 
King of men. 

This wonderful miracle was wrought by giving 
men a new comparison for themselves. If in esti- 
mating his own value a man compares himself with 
personalities essentially lower and meaner than he 
is, then he becomes proud; but if he compares 
himself with the pure and matchless life of Jesus 
Christ, it ministers to humility. No sane man can 
be proud of himself as he matches his character 
against that of Jesus. So it comes about that a 
man grows greater, becomes of nobler quality and 
more splendidly useful to the world, and at the 
same time becomes more genuinely humble, be- 
cause of the loftier personality with which he 
brings himself into comparison. 


THE SUPREMACY OF HUMILITY 367 


I 

Humility is the key to the highest service. 
Christ sets us the example. It begins with the 
cross. Christ humbled himself to the death of the 
cross. He died as tho he were a malefactor under 
the curse of God. He who was rich, yet for our 
sakes became poor, in the Garden of Geth- 
semane wrestled in anguish until the agony 
wrung from him great drops of bloody sweat. 
Christ was humbling himself to be the ransom for 
the world. The burden of our sins he carried with 
a breaking heart. No wonder the apostle says, 
**Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he 
loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation 
for our sins.”’ We ought to get this picture of 
God into our hearts. There is infinite comfort in 
it. We ought never to forget that the great satis- 
faction, the delight of God’s heart is in loving 
and serving his children. This truth is very strik- 
ingly set out in George Macdonald’s ‘‘ Robert Fal- 
coner.’’ I will not attempt the Scotch dialect, but 
translate the substance into plain English. Robert 
is talking with his grandmother about the char- 
acter of God, and says: ‘‘God is not like a proud 
man to take offense, Grannie. There is nothing 
pleases him like the truth, and there is nothing 
displeases him like lying, particularly when it is 


368 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


by way of upholding him. He wants no such up- 
holding. Now you say things about him which 
sound to me fearsome.’’ ‘‘What kind of things 
are they, laddie?’’ asked the old lady, with offense 
glooming in the background. ‘‘Such like as when 
ye speak about him as if he was a poor, proud, 
bailie-like body, full of his own importance, and 
ready to come down upon anybody that did not 
call him by the name of his office. Aye, think, 
thinking about his own glory, in place of the quiet, 
mighty, grand, self-forgetting, all-creating, all- 
upholding, eternal being, who took the form of man 
in Christ Jesus, just that he might have our sins 
to bear and be humbled for our sakes. Oh, Gran- 
nie, think of the face of that man of sorrow, that 
never said a hard word to a sinful woman or a 
despised publican. Was he thinking about his own 
glory, think ye? And we have no right to say we 
know God save in the face of Christ Jesus. What- 
ever is not like Christ is not like God.’’ 

Now it is only as we come into fellowship with 
Christ, and get his spirit of loving devotion to 
humanity, humbling ourselves to the eross of 
burden-bearing for others, that we become of the 
greatest usefulness to the world. At the Winona 
Bible Conference last summer Dr. F. W, Gunsau- 
lus told the story of a boy in Vermont whose father 


THE SUPREMACY OF HUMILITY 369 


was in jail. He had been sent to the jail for a 
long term when the boy was too young to remember 
him; and when the careless children jeered at him 
in school because of his disgrace, he went to his 
mother for the reason, and she had no answer but 
her tears. 

But at length the father came home, and the 
growing boy entered into the bitterness of the 
grown man’s soul as the ex-convict sought through 
the community in vain for employment. From his 
own little bedroom the lad heard his father and 
mother at night praying out of the anguish of 
poverty for God to send work by which the hus- 
band could earn a living for his loved ones. And 
slipping from his bed to his knees the boy vowed 
before God that if his father was given work now, 
he would devote his life in seeing that other men 
from prison got a chance to earn a living. 

The boy grew up and went in his young man- 
hood to Chicago. He prospered and grew very 
rich. But as his wealth increased his religious 
faith seemed to slip from him, and he was greatly 
troubled by his doubts of the doctrines of the 
ehurch. Especially was the atonement a puzzle to 
him, and for years he made it a point to attend 
conferences and religious assemblages where the 
atonement was to be discust by eminent men. 


370 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


At length Dr. Gunsaulus, counseling him as his 
pastor, said to the man: ‘‘Is there not some par- 
ticular in which you have made less sacrifice for 
your fellow men than you should have done? You 
will never have a faith in the atonement that is 
vital until you have yourself imitated in some way 
the. sacrifice of Christ.’’ 

Then of a sudden there rolled back over the rich 
man’s heart the memory of the vow of his boyish 
days, unkept till then. This vision of remembrance 
came to him at midnight. He got up and drest 
himself, and went to the house of his pastor and 
told him the story of his boyhood and his vow, 
and with heart stirred to its profoundest depths 
and eyes wet with tears he said: ‘‘I’ll do it. Ill 
begin in the morning.”’ 

Next morning he wrote to the warden of a great 
penitentiary, asking to have a released convict sent 
to him. The man came and met the clasp of a 
hand of honest brotherhood. The manufacturer 
sent him far into the West to nail up advertising 
signs, and gave him good wages. Then he got an- 
other man from another penitentiary and sent him 
out in the same way. One after another he set on 
their feet such ex-prisoners as he could find, until 
there were seventeen of them that walked through 
his private office to a clean, true life. And he told 


a 


THE SUPREMACY OF HUMILITY 371 


no one of them of any of the others. But they ran 
across one another as they traveled, and when they 
told each other how they had been lifted up out 
of their common pit of perdition by the same loving 
hand, they could not help forming a brotherhood. 
They wrote circle letters which went the rounds 
among themselves, and the rich manufacturer in 
Chicago was one of the circle. 

Then an awful, ravenous disease laid hold on 
the philanthropist and month after month led him 
nearer the jaws of death. But he had no more 
doubts about the atonement to confuse him. He 
trusted One who had done for him more than he 
had done for his fellow men. And he died in the 
calmest of trust—a triumph of spiritual peace. 

Dr. Gunsaulus said that as he was rushing to 
eatch the suburban train to go out to the dead 
man’s home for the funeral, a touch on his arm 
stopt him. ‘‘May I go out to the funeral with 
you—the wife and the boy and I?’’ 

The man who spoke was tall and rugged, drest 
in the rough garb of a ranchman. ‘‘Who are 
you?’’ said the minister. ‘‘Oh, I was from Jack- 
son, Michigan. I live out in South Dakota now. 
I came for the boys—came to be at the funeral. 
This is my wife. This is my boy, named after 
him. Six of us have got boys with his name now.”’ 


372 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


““Of course he went to the funeral,’’ said Dr. 
Gunsaulus. ‘‘And he went to the grave. After the 
coffin was lowered the big man in the coarse leather 
clothes brought seventeen white carnations and 
dropt them into the grave—seventeen white 
flowers for seventeen white souls. And the wife 
and boy came and dropt in flowers, too; that 
was for their home and all the other homes which 
this man had made possible.’’ 


II 


Humility, only, can give to service its true 
dignity. Christ sets the standard of Christian 
dignity. That only has dignity which serves, in his 
order. How jealous some men are of their dignity! 
You hear men speaking together of another and 
they say, ‘‘You will have to be careful, for he 
stands on his dignity.’’ It is a poor pedestal; a 
pitiful perch; often only a laughing stock. How 
different the dignity of Jesus. Christ says, ‘‘I am 
among you as one that serveth;’’ and to-day he is 
the highest in the universe. 

At the great Presbyterian National Assembly a 
few years ago, when they were about to elect a 
moderator, and various names were being pre- 
sented, Dr. Charles L. Thompson of New York 
eame forward to present his candidate. Said he: 


THE SUPREMACY OF HUMILITY 373 


Brethren, I had a dream to-day, which was not all 
a dream. In my vision I saw a corridor reaching 
from this platform back and upward to the first 
century. Out of a door in that century came a 
man of small stature; bronzed, scarred, and 
weather-beaten; a dim halo of glory was about 
him, and while he wore the panoply of a soldier 
of the cross, he carried above him a tattered flag, 
like those of veteran soldiers returning from war. 
Upon it I read the name of Corinth, Ephesus, 
Philippi, and Rome, and as he reached this plat- 
form I said to myself, Surely I cannot be mis- 
taken, this is none other than the Apostle Paul, the 
great missionary to the Gentiles. I ventured to 
inform him as to the character of our Assembly, 
and to assure him that the system of theology in 
which we believed was that which he had outlined 
as being in conformity with the Word of God. He 
seemed deeply interested, and after speaking to 
him of the growth of our church and of our mis- 
sionary work, I offered to introduce him to some 
of the distinguished members of this Assembly. 
**Here, for instance,’’ said I, ‘‘is Benjamin Harri- 
son.’? ‘‘Yes,’’ he replied, ‘‘a worthy successor of 
Washington—a Christian statesman, and an elder 
beloved. I would like to meet him, but not now, 
I will see him later.’’ I said, ‘‘ Here is also General 


374 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Wanamaker.’’ ‘‘Yes,’’ he answered, ‘‘I know his 
record from that of a poor boy to wealth and high 
public position. I know his evangelical spirit, his 
liberality, his personal worth; and that he hath 
built us a grand synagog where Christ only is 
preached. I long to meet him—but wait awhile, I 
will see him later.’’ I said, ‘‘Here also is James 
A. Mount.’’ ‘‘Yes,’’ he answered, ‘‘he is governor 
of the great State of Indiana. An elder in a little 
country church, has ordered his household in the 
fear of God, has a daughter in the foreign field and 
a son a home missionary. I long to meet him—but 
not now, I will see him later.’’ ‘‘Who, then,’’ said 
I, ‘‘do you first wish to see?’’ He looked carefully 
over the Assembly and answered: ‘‘Is there not a 
little bronzed missionary from Alaska here—a man 
about my size—a man of weak eyes and insignifi- 
eant bodily presence—a man in whom the apostolic 
zeal of ancient times has found expression in the 
New World, and who has had the eare of all the 
churches in the regions beyond?’’ ‘‘Ah!’’ I eried, 
‘‘T know who you mean,’’ and not waiting to hear 
another word I sought, found, and presented Shel- 
don Jackson. ‘‘True yoke-fellow and brother be- 
loved,’’ said Paul, ‘‘we are physically small—God 
made us short that we might accommodate our- 
selves to circumstances and magnify his grace. I 


THE SUPREMACY OF HUMILITY 375 


rejoice that primitive zeal still flames in the 
church, and that here and in foreign lands are 
thousands of standard-bearers of the cross who may 
not rest until the nations that sit in darkness have 
seen a great light, and the world is filled with the 
knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea; ‘be 
thou faithful unto death and let no man take thy 
crown.” ”” 

And so Sheldon Jackson, the humble Indian mis- 
sionary, was lifted to the highest dignity that his 
church had to give because they esteemed him to 
have humbled himself the most, and served the 
most laboriously the cause of humanity and of his 
Lord. 


Til 

Humility makes all service glorious. Humble, 
reverent, loving service glorifies common life and 
makes it sacred. Sir Walter Scott says that the 
most beautiful scenery in Scotland is where the 
Highlands and the Lowlands meet. Not in the 
Highlands, nor yet in the Lowlands, but at the 
meeting of the two. And it is as true in the 
spiritual kingdom, when the beaten track becomes 
the highway of God, and the heavenly places in 
Christ Jesus are connected with the common duties 
and everyday business of life. How beautifully 


376 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Christ brings them together in the Lord’s Prayer: 
‘‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread.’’ There you 
have the meeting of the Highlands and the Low- 
lands. 

I was reading recently the story of a young 
fellow in one of the Northern backwoods districts 
who was a bright boy, a genuinely religious boy, 
and who had attracted the attention of the neigh- 
bors. They all said he ought to be a minister, and 
they persuaded his hard-working father, who had 
a farm not fertile, and whose resources were 
limited, to sacrifice himself further that the boy 
might be educated. The boy did well, his profes- 
sors were proud of him, he had gone through two 
years at college; and it seemed as if he had a 
great future. 

One morning, however, he opened a letter; it 
was from his mother. ‘‘Your father,’’ she said, 
““died last night; we must leave everything to 
God.”’ 

The boy went to the president of the college to 
tell him about it. ‘‘We cannot let you go,’’ said 
the president. ‘‘As you cannot now pay your own 
expenses, you must have help; we will see what 
we can do.”’ 

‘‘Ah!’’ said the boy, ‘‘mother is at home; there 


{ 


THE SUPREMACY OF HUMILITY 377 


are three little children; and they cannot do any- 
thing on the farm. I must go home.’’ 

“‘Oh,’’ said the president, ‘‘do you love your 
mother more than you love God? Don’t you re- 
member him saying, ‘He that hateth father and 
mother for my sake and the gospel’s?’ ’’ 

‘«Stop,’’ said the young fellow. ‘‘It cannot mean 
that. Don’t you remember when he was in his 
agony on the cross he said to John, ‘Behold thy 
mother!’ The gospel cannot mean that.’’ 

And the boy went back to the farm. He did not 
complete his education; he never became a min- 
ister, or any hero, or saint, as the people thought. 
But he plowed a straight furrow, did an honest 
day’s work, paid his debts, and helped his mother 
rear the three children to a noble life. Do not God 
and angels looking down on such a man as that see 
that all the heroes are not to be found on the 
battle-fields? that the greatest saints are not those 
in pictures with a halo about their heads? My 
brothers! my sisters! what the world needs most 
is heroism, sainthood, in common life; Christian 
men and women who with humble hearts will do 
everyday duties without noise or show or adver- 
tisement, because the heart and the conscience, liv- 
ing in sweet fellowship with Jesus Christ, says, 
““This is the way, walk ye in it.’’ Believe me, it is 


378 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


the life that stoops the lowest in service that will 
soar the highest. 


“The bird that soars on highest wing 
Builds on the ground her lowly nest; 
And she that doth most sweetly sing 
Sings in the shade when all things rest; 
In lark and nightingale we see 
What honor hath humility. 


“The saint that wears heaven’s brightest crows 
In deepest adoration bends; 
The weight of glory bows him down 
The most when most his soul ascends; 
Nearest the throne itself must be 
The footstool of humility.” 


THE SANCTUARIES OF LIFE 


Sida sient ain data 
ey hte pry 


THE SANCTUARIES OF LIFE 


“A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place 
of our sanctuary.”—Jeremiah XVII: 12. 
HE idea of sanctuary was originally a refuge. 
It suggested some one pursued escaping from 
his pursuer into a sanctuary such as the houses of 
refuge provided for the innocent slayer under the 
old Jewish economy. It was always true if a man 
reached the altar of the temple he for the present 
was safe. While he was in that sacred place he 
could not be molested. But while the thought of 
sanctuary is usually connected with escape from 
punishment or persecution, or public reprobation 
in some great sin or sorrow, the conception may 
well be enlarged to a much ampler sphere. The 
thought of sanctuary may well apply to the long- 
ing of the soul for shelter from the wear and strain 
and fret of life, the trivial and vexatious, and 
where the consolation needed is temporary rather 
than permanent. 
No one lives very long in the world without com- 
ing to know the need of some sanctuary for the 
soul, some place of retreat where the inner self 


381 


382 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


shall be comforted and revived and renewed for 
the struggle of life. One of the biographers of 
Charles Dickens declares that the basal weakness 
of the great novelist’s character was in this, that 
“There was for him no city of the mind against 
outward ills for inner consolation and shelter.’’ 
Commenting on this another literary man says: 
“‘Dickens depended more than most men on the 
stimulus which outer things provided for him.’’ 
And Robertson Nicoll well says that this is the 
analysis of a temper which can spoil religious char- 
acter and service as well as literary. To the life 
which prefers to work ever in the open, glittering 
and noticed, indifferent to any law or love above 
itself, and indisposed to retirement, there can be 
no true sanctuary. And without a sanctuary there 
cannot be that contemplativeness, that sense of pro- 
portion in things, that habit of rising above ma- 
terial standards and aims, that power of with- 
drawal for a time from the ordinary ambitions and 
entanglements of life, which form at once a man’s 
true consolation in adversity and his source of new 
courage for the tasks and trials awaiting him. 
Our text declares that in the last analysis the 
throne of God is the place where man finds the 
answer to his desire for quietness, to his passion 
for peace, to his search for a sanctuary. If this 


THE SANCTUARIES OF LIFE 383 


be true, then there is sanctuary only in some- 
thing that shall recall us to God—something that 
shall bring God’s nearness and protection to our 
consciousness so that in it we may find rest. 


I 

Nature is to many people a blest sanctuary. 
There are those who cannot look upon the sea, or 
look upward on the lofty mountains, or stand in 
the midst of the mountains, or walk in the great 
forests without it becoming a sacrament to them, 
bringing to them a spirit of worship and reverence 
that refreshes the soul and renews the strength 
of mind and heart. Many of us could join with 
the poet who sings: © 


“A haze on the far horizon, 
The infinite, tender sky, 
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields, 
And the wild geese sailing high,— 
And all over upland and lowland 
The charm of the goldenrod,— 
Some of us call it Autumn, 
And others call it God. 


“Like tides on a crescent sea-beach, 
When the moon is new and thin, 
Into our hearts high yearnings 
Come welling and surging in,— 
Come from the mystic ocean, 
Whose rim no foot has trod,— 
Some of us call it Longing, 
And others call it God.” 


384 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


II 


Communion with noble souls in literature and 
in art is a sanctuary to multitudes of people. Mr. 
Bryce tells us that one day in the lobby of the 
House of Commons he saw Mr. Gladstone with his 
face white and drawn with sorrow about a threat- 
ened defeat of a great cause on which his heart 
was set. Mr. Bryce attempted to divert his mind 
by telling him how Dante in his last years had 
obtained a lectureship at Ravenna which raised 
him above the sufferings of poverty. Mr. Glad- 
stone’s face immediately lit up, and he said: ‘‘ How 
strange it is to think that these great souls, whose 
words are a beacon light to all the generations, 
should have had cares and anxieties to vex them in 
their daily life just like the rest of us common 
mortals.’’ The glimpse of noble human fellow- 
ship opened at once a sanctuary into which the 
great Christian statesman entered and was com- 
forted. 

To many of us the poet is the greatest of all 
teachers in bringing the hidden things of God to 
light. He is the great interpreter of nature as 
well as human nature, and brings the immanent, 
present God to our consciousness. To others the 
artist makes even nature more wonderful and in- 
spiring than it seems to the eye at first glance. 


THH SANCTUARIES OF LIFE 385 


Sylvester Horne, in discussing ‘‘The Influence of 
Art,’’ quotes the saying of John Ruskin: ‘‘You 
may think, perhaps, that a bird’s nest painted by 
Wiliam Hunt is better than a real bird’s nest. 
We, indeed, pay a large sum for the one, and 
scarcely care to look at or save the other. But it 
would be better for us that all the pictures in 
the world should perish than that the birds should 
cease to build their nests.’’ That is very true, and 
yet nobody could tell us better than Ruskin the 
other side of that question. The true artist is in 
his sphere and through his medium what the true 
poet is in his, and the true preacher in his—that 
is, an interpreter. He is, like the poet and the 
preacher, a seer with a certain God-given talent 
of letting others know what he sees. In the 
biography of a great artist there is the narrative 
of how he saw the beauty of a simple pastoral scene 
near some English village. He painted it, and 
when it was finished he showed it to an old in- 
habitant of the place. The man was amazed to 
perceive that he had lived eighty years in that very 
village and had never seen before how beautiful 
it was. The artist had come to him as Christ to 
the blind, and opened his eyes. He had opened a 
sanctuary to the man’s soul where he found God 
and was encouraged. 


386 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


So it is that not only the great masters of the 
older day, like Michael Angelo, and Tintoretto, and 
Fra Angelico, and Raphael, but many of the mod- 
ern artists, like Watts, and Hunt, and Millais, and 
others too numerous to mention, have raised sanc- 
tuaries along the dusty paths of life into which men 
and women have gone, tired and worn, to be com- 
forted and refreshed, and have had their hearts 
lifted up to the ‘‘glorious throne’’ where the soul 
finds peace. 


III 


The church, with its Sabbaths, its open Bible, its 
inspiring music, and its preaching of God, and 
Christ, and the soul, and the immortal career, is a 
sanctuary which not only rests the weary heart, 
but stills the fever in man’s spirit, and reveals to 
the world-worn nature the superiority of spiritual 
things, and brings God close and makes him real. 
The shame of our generation is the perpetual at- 
tempt made to more and more override the Sab- 
bath and make all days alike secular. No man has 
language eloquent enough to properly pay tribute 
to what the Christian Sabbath has meant to the 
world. The Sabbath—with its quiet, with its sur- 
cease of toil, with its opportunity to worship, with 
its communion and fellowships of home, with its 


THE SANCTUARIES OF LIFE 387 


perpetual reminder of God and the spiritual nature 
—what a sanctuary it has been through all the 
struggles of the ages. The church building itself 
and the church service are sanctuaries where weary 
souls find peace. Here, in the church, dominating 
everything, is the Bible. It is a book for all men, 
and it is our glory that it is free and unfettered; 
and it is gloriously true that it is so full of simple 
teaching that the wayfaring man, tho a fool, may 
read it as he runs and get great good; but that 
does not mean that there is no great, important, 
God-appointed office for the preacher. He is the 
interpreter. If he is called of God to do this work, 
his study of the Bible will discover meanings, 
beauties, and treasures in it that a superficial ex- 
amination will not disclose. And who of us who 
have sought the church as the sanctuary of God 
through these years does not recall as among the 
happiest and most precious of experiences the hours 
when God has revealed himself to us in the sermon 
until we have been exalted and our spiritual power 
renewed ? 

So the music of the church is the greatest music 
in the world. The great composers have been men 
whose hearts God has touched. Souls that have 
looked upon the face of the Christ in Bethlehem, 
or on Calvary, or on the resurrection day have 


388 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


given to the world the greatest music that the 
human ear ever heard. The hymns in the church 
are high-water mark of joyous and saintly feeling, 
and to multitudes of tried and troubled men and 
women Christian music is the sanctuary where most 
frequently they find God. So it is that the church 
in our day is the source of new impulse in spiritual 
life as surely as in any age of the past. 

The Christian life may be likened to the flight of 
a bird. The Duke of Argyle, in ‘‘The Reign of 
Law,’’ has detailed the mechanism of flight. 
He tells us that the bird is led to flight by its 
inward impulse. You can never calculate that. 
He mounts upward, and he hovers there in mid- 
air; he drops heavily down to the earth; he spreads 
his wings out and recovers himself. He soars up 
at a new angle; he wheels round and round. As 
he circles there he is not afraid of the tempest; he 
plays with the lightning; and yet, so nicely ad- 
justed are his wings to the environment of the sur- 
rounding atmosphere, the slightest change in 
the force or in the direction of the wind requires 
a new adjustment on his part. Now, the Bible 
likens the life of the child of God to the flight of 
an eagle. ‘‘They that wait upon the Lord shall 
renew their strength; they shall mount up with 
wings as eagles.’’ And it is proved by all observa- 


THE SANCTUARIES OF LIFE 389 


tion that those who wait upon God in the church 
services with sincere hearts find it a sanctuary 
where new impulses to righteousness of life and 
nobility of service are certain to be found. 


IV 

Secret prayer to God is one of the great sanc- 
tuaries of the Christian life. Shakespeare says, 
“At their wits’ end, all men pray.’’ It is the 
greatest folly that men go on till they get to the 
end of their wits before they think of prayer, be- 
cause those who begin with prayer do not get to 
the end of their wits. 

Dr. Gunsaulus preaches one of his great sermons 
on secret prayer from those words of Jesus when 
he tells of the pilgrimage we should make to our 
closets—‘‘Shut the door.’’ And he emphasizes the 
fact that the one thing Jesus seems most intent 
about, that you and I should enjoy the privilege 
of prayer and receive its benefits, is all explained 
and emphasized in those words: ‘‘Shut the door.”’ 
Any man or woman among us who will have a 
secret place where daily we shall go into sanctuary 
and ‘‘shut the door,’’ shall not lose the heavenly 
path, but if it is to be the true sanctuary we must 
shut out everything else and really pray to God. 
For, as Gunsaulus says, it was not an easy task 


390 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Christ set us when he said, ‘‘Shut the door.’’ 


‘“Why, surely,’’ you say, ‘‘that is something I can — 


do with one hand, while I grasp other things with 
the other hand.’’ No, both hands must be inside. 
There must be no effort to grasp things without. 
‘“Well,’’ you say, ‘‘what shall I shut the door 
against? There are so many things with which I 
must keep in touch. There is my church, my 
family, my relatives, my dear friends.’’ Oh, poor 
soul! It seems such ordinary talk, does it not, in 
the presence of the great, sweet Being who is say- 
ing, ‘‘Shut the door?’’ I must be alone with God; 
I must feel again my personal relationship to my 
Father; I must realize again that if there was only 
one being in the world, and I were that being, while 
the moral universe subsisted, still there must be a 
cross, still a Christ, still a Gethsemane, still the 
morning of the resurrection, still the open sepul- 


cher. The only way to get rid of our enemies is _ 


to ‘‘Shut the door.’’ The real truth is that, when 


the real crises of life come, the only enemy is’ 


myself. This is the one I need to conquer. Here 
are passions, prejudices, hates, lusts. Oh, my 
friends, whatever your gain or loss, realize this, 
that never until you shut the door will you go into 
the presence of God; never until in secret prayer 
you are alone with yourself will you be delivered 


< f 


NN 


THE SANCTUARIES OF LIFE 391 


from your enemies. What can any man do to harm 
me, unless I harm myself? If ever you are tossed 
about upon seas of darkness, it will be because you 
neglected to put the anchor on board and your ship 
is at the mercy of the waves. ‘‘Shut the door.’’ 


el 


Vv 


All that we have said leads to this conclusion, 
that loyal devotion to the personal Christ as our 
Savior and Lord is our supreme sanctuary. Noth- 
ing else will ever supply our need. We need a 
sanctuary, every one of us, from our sins. We shall 
only find it in Christ. A minister said to a sick 
man one day as he was about to go away after 
calling on him, ‘‘Is there anything you want, any- 
thing you would like to have to make you com- 
fortable?’’ The preacher had in his mind little 
things for the sick-room, dainties and luxuries, 
that are supposed to be desired by an invalid. 
Turning earnest and longing eyes upon him, the 
sick man said: ‘‘Yes, sir, I want the forgiveness 
of my sins; I want that.’’ Brothers, sisters, that 
is the bed-rock want in your life and in mine. 
There is not a man or a woman among you, I do 
not care how moral and right-living you are, but 
what if you were to speak out with the true con- 
viction of your soul you would say to your inmost 


392 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


self, ‘‘I need the forgiveness of my sins, and I 
want it, and must have it.’? We do not dare to 
lay our lives alongside the spotless holiness of Al- 
mighty God. We must have sanctuary, and we can 
only find it in the atonement of Jesus Christ on the 
cross, and daily and hourly we must have that 
sanctuary in him. 

If we thus give ourselves up to Christ as our 
Savior, we shall appreciate the sanctuary that is 
in the thought that we are not our own, that we 
are bought with a price, even the precious blood 
of Christ. This will be a precious sanctuary to us 
in time of bereavement and sorrow. ‘‘Who took 
this rose?’’ cried a head-gardener, in anger, when 
he missed a certain rose he had, with very great 
care, brought to perfection. ‘‘Oh!’’ said his helper, 
“‘the master was here a little time ago, and he 
took it, and he told me to tell you he wanted it.’’ 
The head-gardener was satisfied; the rose was not 
his. It belonged to the master. So sometimes in 
our great sorrows we are tempted to ask, ‘‘Why 
was he, why was she, taken? Why have I lost that? 
Why are my hopes dashed to the ground just as 
they were being realized?’’ Brother, the Master, 
the great owner of you and of yours, and of me 
and of mine, has come and done it. He wanted that 
beautiful flower and has taken it to his own bosom. 


THE SANCTUARIES OF LIFE 393 


He has seen your danger in worldliness and pros- 
perity and has pruned away the branch for which 
you grieve. You are not your own, and your 
divine Lord and Savior, watching over you with 
infinite tenderness, will do right. Is there not 
sanctuary for your soul in that blest confidence? 

It is a precious thought that in communion with 
Jesus Christ we may always have sanctuary for our 
souls. I cannot always fly to the solitudes of nature 
that they may tell me of God; I cannot always 
have leisure for books or pictures that they may 
lift me into noble communion; I cannot always 
be in the sacred precincts of the church, or listen 
to inspiring music, or illuminating preaching of 
the word of God; it cannot be always Sabbath to 
my soul, the week-day calls to me for service and 
for toil; I cannot always have opportunity for my 
closet and the shut door; but there can come to me 
no day of trial when I may not in the midst of the 
hardest struggle find sanctuary in the conscious- 
ness of Christ, and his love, and his presence in my 
soul. F. B. Meyer gives a very beautiful inter- 
pretation of those great words in the One Hundred 
and Thirty-ninth Psalm, where David says, ‘‘If I 
take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the 
uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy 
hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.”’ 


394 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Father, mother, have you never helped your little 
baby to walk? Have you never taken the child’s 
two hands clasped in your left and said, ‘‘Now, 
walk, baby; walk, darling; lean upon this hand 
and come.’’ And the child has tried to put this 
foot and then that forward; but you know you 
have your right hand behind, holding his dress. 
“Riven there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right 
hand shall hold me.’’ We want the two. We want 
leading and we want holding. We want to be told 
our path, and we want to be kept from falling. 
How close this brings God to us. We do not have 
to deal with an incomprehensible spirit who broods 
in all spaces and tenants all ages, but we have to 
do with a tender hand; in fact, with two hands. I 
eannot see his face; I shall not see my Pilot 
face to face till I have crossed the bar; but mean- 
while, tho I cannot see the face of Him who 
loves me, the face that was once wet with tears and 
blood for my redemption, I am conscious, hour by 
hour, that there is a divine hand leading and 
another holding, and that I am safe in their care. 


THE SOUL’S MASTER, 
LEADER, AND RESTORER 


THE SOUL’S MASTER, LEADER, 
AND RESTORER 


“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He 
leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.” 
—Psalm XXIII; 2, 3. 


HRIST, by assuming to be the Good Shepherd 

of our souls, has absorbed all the teaching of 
this shepherd psalm of David into himself, and 
when we think of David’s shepherd we have a 
vision of Jesus Christ. 


I 


There is first of all a thought of mastery in our 
text, ‘‘He maketh me to lie down in green pas- 
tures.’” The sheep does not lie down where he 
pleases, but where the shepherd sees fit. The first 
supreme characteristic of Christianity is this recog- 
nition of Christ as the soul’s Master. There are 
those who boast their independence even of Jesus, 
but it is a lonely and hazardous undertaking. 

I have read the story of a young man who when 
a friend tried to dissuade him from an enterprise 
he had on hand exclaimed proudly, ‘‘I am my own 
master.’’ ‘‘Did you ever consider what a respon- 


397 


398 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


sible post that is?’’ asked his friend. ‘‘Respon- 
sible! What do you mean?’’ ‘‘A master must lay 
out the work which he wants done, and see that it 
is done right. He should try to secure the best ends 
by the best means. He must keep on the lookout 
against obstacles and accidents, and watch that 
everything goes straight, or else he must fail. To 
be master of yourself you have your conscience to 
keep clear, your heart to cultivate, your temper to 
govern, your will to direct, and your judgment to 
instruct. You are master over many servants, and, 
if you don’t master them, they will master you.’’ 
‘“That is so,’’ said the young man. ‘‘Now I could 
undertake no such thing,’’ continued his friend; 
“‘T should fail if I did. Saul wanted to be his 
own master and failed. Herod failed. Judas failed. 
No man is fit to be his own master. ‘One is your 
Master, even Christ.’ I work under his direction.’’ 

I know of nothing more pitiful in the history of 
mankind than the story of some earnest, noble souls 
who have been so hedged about by prejudice that 
they have seen Christ and, Christianity through 
colored glasses, and while they have sought to live 
good lives, have tried to live them alone, without 
divine help. The position of such a soul is graph- 
ically exprest by the little song of William Ernest 
Henley: 


| 
| 


a a ee 


THE SOUL’S MASTER. 399 


“Out of the night that covers me, 
Black as the pit from pole to pole, 
I thank whatever gods may be 
For my unconquerable soul. 


“In the fell clutch of circumstance, 
I have not winced or cried aloud; 

Under the bludgeonings of chance 
My head is bloody but not bowed. 


“Tt matters not how strait the gate, 

How charged with punishments the scroll; 
I am the master of my fate, 

I am the captain of my soul.” 


How sad and lonely is such a soul compared to a 
man like Paul who exults in the consciousness that 
Christ is his Master, and that nothing can separate 
his life from that of his Lord. Put over against 
these lonely verses the wonderful words of Paul: 
“‘For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, 
nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor 
things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor 
depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to 
separate us from the love of God, which is Christ 
Jesus our Lord.’’ 

There is a thought of mastery, of course, which 
is brutal and causes the man who is mastered to 
have a sense of degradation and a spirit which is 
servile. But to be mastered by the divine love is 
to be exalted and lifted up into a holy fellowship 
until we become heirs of God and joint-heirs with 


400 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Jesus Christ. Henry Ward Beecher was once 
crossing Fulton Ferry in company with a friend. 
It was a stormy morning, and Beecher stood on the 
prow of the boat rapt in meditation. His friend 
called his attention to a sea-gull that was bravely 
facing the wind and the snow. Beecher, with the 
reverie still unbroken, said, ‘‘ He is mine,’’ and then 
added with dimmed eyes and flushed face, ‘‘I am 
joint-heir.’’ So long as we think of our limitations 
we lose sight of our great inheritance, but when we 
yield our souls completely to the mastery of Jesus 
Christ, we come to exult in the consciousness that 
Jesus cannot occupy the highest throne in heaven 
without sharing it with the humblest of his dis- 
ciples. ‘‘ All things are yours, for ye are Christ’s, 
and Christ is God’s.”’ 


II 

We have also a thought of leadership. ‘‘ He lead- 
eth me beside the still waters.’’ Christ is the only 
leader of the human soul who always leads to peace. 
Life is a tragedy always to a thoughtful man who 
looks at it without hope in Christ. George Eliot 
once said: ‘‘I hardly ever look at a bent old man, 
or wizened old woman, but I see also with my 
mind’s eye that part of which they are the 
shrunken remnant, the drama of hope and love 


aS se 


THE SOUL’S MASTER 401 


which has long since reached its catastrophe and 
left the poor soul like a dim and dusty stage with 
all its sweet garden scenes and fair perspectives 
overturned and thrown out of sight.’’ That is, 
this woman thought every human life lived out to 
its natural close is a tragedy. Let me put over 
against that a visit I made the other day to an 
old man, a member of this church. He has been 
in his room in the hospital for three years. I found 
him in bed, as he is most of the time now. But he 
was cheerful and happy, and in the course of my 
conversation I asked him how long he had been a 
Christian. A smile came into his eyes as he said: 
““Well, take seventeen from ninety, and there you 
are.’’ And then he went on to tell me how seventy- 
three years ago, in a distant land, in his father’s 
house, there had come to him one day the great 
eall from God. He was all alone, but the Master 
ealled him to yield his heart to him, and then there 
came the other voice of the enemy, saying to him 
that his young friend who was not a Christian 
would have to be given up. But the Master speak- 
ing in his heart said to him, ‘‘ Why not bring your 
friend to Christ too?’’ And so this young seven- 
teen-year-old lad went out and found the other boy, 
and said to him, ‘‘I feel that I ought to be a 
Christian. I have made up my mind that I will 


402 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


follow Christ and try to do what he wants me 
to do.’’ And his friend thought for a few minutes 
and looked up with wet eyes and said, ‘‘Then if 
you do that I will go with you and we will become 
Christians together.’’ And as the old man told the 
story his face glowed and the happy tears filled his 
eyes as he said with great emotion, ‘‘From that day 
to this Christ has been my leader. I began to be 
a Christian that day, and I am a Christian now. 
He has led me all the way.’’ There is no tragedy 
about a life like that. 

Only this divine leadership can give us strength 
for the noblest service. There is an old legend of 
the Middle Ages concerning a knight who had vowed 
himself to the service of humanity for the sake of 
Christ. This man had taken the usual vow, and it 
seemed a great and easy thing to be a warrior in 
the cause of right, shoulder to shoulder with men 
who were of the same mind with him. Presently 
a task came to this warrior from which his whole 
soul shrank. Some one had to discharge it. Why 
not he? He hesitated, he questioned with himself, 
he took advice from others, and all who knew and 
loved him sought to persuade him from attempting 
the seemingly impossible. He entered upon a vigil 
in the church one night that he might consult with 
God and his own soul as to what way he should 


THE SOUL’S MASTER 403 


take. It seemed to him as tho the Master himself 
appeared and addrest him somewhat in this wise: 
‘‘Turn back, my son, turn back, spare yourself; the 
task is too great. Why should you leave all your 
fellows behind, and undertake something in which 
you may fail, and in which even if you succeed the 
world will never know?’’ It seemed the Master’s 
voice, but there was another voice which spoke 
within, and made him answer: ‘‘No, tho thou 
comest with the voice of Jesus, I will not believe 
that this is the voice of the Highest; it is not Jesus- 
like,’’ and when he had so said, the Master reached 
out his arms to him and said, ‘‘Come, thou blest of 
my Father, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.’’ 
When we are completely surrendered to the leader- 
ship of Jesus Christ, we know the voice of Christ 
which speaks in our inner soul and gives us courage 
for heroic service. Under that leadership nothing 
can affright us. Under the leadership of Jesus 
Paul was able to make converts, and develop saints 
in the palace of the bloodthirsty Nero. It was a 
hell on earth, but men and women grew to be saints 
there, because they were led by Christ. Are you 
working in some shop, or factory, or store, where 
Christ is blasphemed, and do you ask me to-day, 
“Ts it possible for me to be a Christian when my 
fellow workers are gamblers and profane?’’ I re- 


404 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


ply without hesitation, ‘‘Yes! you ean if you will 
let Jesus Christ lead you.’’ Does another young 
man say, ‘‘Can I be a Christian when all my fellow 
clerks scoff at Christianity and poison the very air 
I breathe all day long with vulgar and eyil 
speech?’’ Yes, indeed, you can if you let Jesus 
Christ take you by the hand and lead you. ‘‘Can 
I be a Christian?’’ asks a woman whose husband 
sneers at religion, or who it may be is a drunkard 
and shames her by his degradation. My answer is, 
‘“Indeed you can.’’ There is no situation this side 
of perdition so terrible that a man or a woman 
under the leadership of Jesus Christ may not find 
in the midst of all the storms and dangers of life 
the still waters of heavenly peace. There is not one 
of us but may be able to sing at the last: 


“He leads us on 
Through all the unquiet years; 
Past all our dreamland hopes, and doubts, and fears, 
He guides our steps. Through all the tangled maze 
Of sin, of sorrow, and o’erclouded days 
We know his will is done; 
And still he leads us on.” 


III 
There is a thought of restoration. ‘‘He re- 
storeth my soul.’’ David knew by personal experi- 
ence what that meant. I think there must be some 


THE SOUL’S MASTER 405 


deep meaning in the order of our text. First the 
soul is mastered by the divine love. Then it is 
surrendered to the heavenly leadership. Then 
comes restoration. Mastery, leadership, restoration, 
that is God’s order. But it is only in Jesus Christ 
that the sinner finds any promise or hope of restora- 
tion. The man who closes the Bible has no hope 
for the sinner. Professor Huxley says: ‘‘ Nature 
never overlooks a mistake, and never makes the 
slightest allowance for ignorance.’’ It is the God 
who gave his Son to save a world of sinners who 
“*restoreth the soul.’’ The greatest thing David 
ever said of God was, ‘‘Thy gentleness hath made 
me great.” Dr. Watkinson says: Great is the 
efficacy of kindness. It may often look absurd; 
love looks absurd when it attempts with soft words 
to tame wild beasts. Love looks absurd when it 
attempts to fetter madness with silver strands of 
affection. Love looks absurd when it enters the 
arena of strife, and seeks to reconcile contending 
factions by the wave of an olive branch. But, mind 
you, love is the sovereign conquerer that fills all the 
world. Christ helps men by recognizing what is 
good in them. He encourages us. His sympathy 
means our salvation. He restores us through sym- 
pathy and gentleness and love. He saves us by for- 
giveness. 


406 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Some men sneer at Christianity because of its 
gentleness and spirit of mildness. They deal in 
blood and iron, thunder and lightning. They do 
not like the mildness of Christ, they have no faith 
in anything but force. Yet Faraday, the great 
scientist, told us that there was more energy stored 
up in a dewdrop than there is liberated by a thun- 
der storm. It is said that a bank of snow six feet 
thick will stop a bullet shot at a distance of fifty 
yards. The bullet will not penetrate that downy 
bank of snow, but it will go through the solid em- 
bankment when fired at three times the distance. 
The bullet shatters the steel, penetrates the solid 
bank; but the soft feathery snow has a way all its 
own, and it takes in that murderous lead and loves 
it, and, as it were, soothes it. God dealt like that 
with David when he sinned, and Christ dealt like 
that with Peter when he denied him. Infinite gen- 
tleness, patience, clemency, long-suffering—these 
were the qualities by which their souls were re- 
stored when they were in danger of eternal dis- 
aster. So God restores us, and we must learn the 
secret of soul restoration in our attempts to share 
with Jesus Christ in restoring those about us. It 
is gentleness and love that are all-powerful. 

Christ restores our souls through communion 
and fellowship with himself. Are there any here 


THE SOUL’S MASTER 407 


who are conscious of sin and are ashamed and 
grieved at the lack of harmony which you feel 
there must be between your soul and Him who is 
‘altogether lovely’’ in all His thoughts and deeds? 
Yield your heart to Christ, let him lead your 
thoughts, and you shall become like him. If we 
do this, ou? friendship shall result in likeness to 
Christ. As has been well said, it is only the sub- 
missive soul that he can mold with the gentleness 
that gives the finest spiritual results. He will not 
foree us. He is no Cesar, but a Christ. We must 
yield our wills to cooperate with his. There in- 
timacy shall result in likeness. Some of you have 
heard the legend of the stigmata of St. Francis. 
Men said concerning that sweet and gentle soul 
that he was so much with the Christ that even his 
body took on the likeness to his blest Master, 
and when his brethren undrest him to put his 
grave-clothes on him, they found in his hands the 
print of the nails of Calvary, in his feet the un- 
healed scars of crucifixion, and in his side a 
wound still bleeding from the spear-thrust. This 
is only a legend, and yet the story has a sugges- 
tion of truth. The miracle that is worked by in- 
timacy with Christ is a miracle not of similitude 
of body, but of likeness of soul. Yield yourself 
here and now and always, plastic of soul and will- 


408 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


ing of spirit, to the influences of the Master, and 
your soul shall be restored so completely that the 
Christ tenderness, the Christ dignity, the Christ 
gentleness, and the Christ power shall be yours. 

We are told by mariners who sail on the Indian 
seas that many times they are able to tell their 
approach to certain islands long before they can 
see them by the sweet fragrance of the sandal- 
wood that is wafted far out upon the deep. And 
so it is true that when the soul of a man or a 
woman is completely mastered by Jesus Christ, 
until all its thoughts and purposes are under his 
leadership, and the soul is so restored to its son- 
ship to God that man talks face to face with God 
as in the beginning, a subtle, silent force goes out 
from the personality which all feel and are in- 
fluenced by. So it is that the saintly man or 
woman carries an inspiration and continually 
sheds a benediction; so that his friends and all 
who meet him say, ‘‘His coming brings peace and 
joy into our homes; welcome his coming.’’ Even 
Peter, the man of blundering sword and blunder- 
ing speech, was so restored through the tenderness 
of Jesus Christ that his shadow, as he passed by on 
deeds of mercy intent, had healing in it. 

Surely the hope of a restoration like this is the 
noblest ambition that can inspire any human soul. 


THE SOUL’S MASTER 409 


It is worth any struggle, however severe or how- 
ever lengthy it may be. Repentance may be the 
work of a moment. Forgiveness is the work of an 
instant. But restoration takes time, and may be 
gradual. Let us not be discouraged with ourselves, 
if our faces are toward Christ, and with earnest 
hearts we are seeking to be like him. Somebody 
asked Paganini, ‘‘How long does it take to learn 
the violin?’’ And this was his grim answer: 
“‘Twelve hours a day for twenty-five years.’’ It 
is simple. How long does it take to make a Chris- 
tian? How long does it take to restore a soul into 
the likeness of Jesus Christ? Paul had been at it 
twenty-five years, during which time he had fought 
with beasts, had been stoned until he was left for 
dead, had been whipt at the whipping-post, had 
been imprisoned with his feet in the stocks, had 
been shipwrecked, all the while carrying his life in 
his hand, for Christ’s sake, and tho all his world 
saw in him wondrous transformation, ever growing 
more wonderful and beautiful, yet Paul himself 
was compelled to voice his supreme longing in these 
words: ‘‘That I may know him.’”’ ‘‘What!’’ you 
exclaim, ‘‘Paul, don’t you know him yet?’’ He 
shakes his gray head and says, ‘‘No, not as he is 
to be known. I know a little of him; I love him; 
his name is in my heart. I want to know him in 


410 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


the fellowship of his sufferings, that I. may be 
made conformable unto his death; if by any means 
I might attain the resurrection of the dead.’’ But 
Paul presses forward steadfastly with his eye on 
the prize, and day by day his soul is changed into 
the likeness of his Lord, until at last in Nero’s 
dungeon they tell him that the ax is being whetted 
with which the tyrant is to take off his head. With 
a smile of ineffable peace he sits down to write his 
last letter to Timothy, his son in the Gospel, and 
the words leap from his pen: ‘‘I am now ready to 
be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. 
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my 
course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is 
laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the 
Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that 
day: And not to me only, but unto all them also 
that love his appearing.’’ 


FELLOWSHIP WITH 
CHRIST IN TEMPTA- 
TION AND TRIUMPH 


FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST IN 
TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH 


“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness 

to be tempted of the devil.”—Matthew IV: 1. 
HE temptation of Christ brings him close to us: 
It is the sure proof to us of his incarnation, of 
the reality of his human life. God cannot be 
tempted of evil, and it is only because Jesus be- 
came incarnate that he came within the possibility 
of temptation and was tempted in all points like 
as we are, yet was without sin. We must not make 
the mistake of imagining that there was anything 
unreal about this temptation of Christ. The reality 
of it is beyond question. His conflict in the wilder- 
ness, and his agony in the garden of Gethsemane, 
were not dramas acted on the stage of life by one 
who assumed our réle, but facts in the real ex- 
perience of Jesus. 

We lose a vast deal of the blessing which the life 
of Christ can bring to us when we fail to appre- 
ciate the fact that the life of Christ was a typical 
human life, which shows what every human life 
may be in its essential essence, when completely 

413 


414 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


given up to God and entirely obedient to the divine 
will. The possibility of the Christ-life, with all 
its beauty and glory, is in every human heart 
which is really surrendered to God. That is the 
hope of our humanity. Desperate, indeed, would 
be the outlook for the human race but for that 
inspiring truth. Christ conquered in temptation 
by the power and presence of God. We must share 
the same temptations with him, but if we go with 
Christ into our temptations, living in his spirit of 
obedience and faith, we, too, shall share his 
triumphs. 

Let us study together some of the phases of 
temptations which, in the very nature of things, 
are certain to come to us, as they did to Christ. 


E 


As we study this story of the temptation of 
Christ we are imprest with the fact that one 
of the common temptations of our own lives is to 
an unholy use of our power. The tempter says to 
Jesus, ‘‘Command that these stones be made 
bread.’’ There is in this an insinuation of lack of 
power. It is like the dare of one boy to another 
to jump off a precipice or to try to swim a swift 
current. As you read it you see the sneer in it. 
“Tf thou be the Son of God, command that these 


FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST 415 


stones be made bread.’’ This temptation of Christ 
was to use the power which God had given to 
him to make himself comfortable—to take this 
strange and wonderful power over nature by which 
Jesus stilled the waves and saved poor men from 
shipwreck, by which he fed the multitudes with the 
little lad’s loaves and fishes, by which he healed 
lepers, and opened deaf ears and blind eyes; to 
take this power to make bread to feed his hungry 
stomach, and give material comfort to himself. 
What a common temptation. But Christ gained 
his great victory by refusing. He could go 
hungry, but he would not prostitute his divine 
power for selfish uses. Phillips Brooks, in his 
great sermon on ‘‘The Food of Man,’’ said: If 
Christ had yielded, can we not picture him as he 
descends the mountain? He has tasted bread. 
His knees are strong. His’ famished body has 
received new vigor; but what a weight is on his 
soul! How he loathes the bread that he has 
eaten! How beautiful seems the chance that he 
has cast away! What a terrible defeat! And so we 
are being tempted in the most commonplace experi- 
ences of life to satisfy our hunger for material com- 
fort by bringing our souls to beggary. Christ con- 
quered the world when he denied himself the lower 
gratification that he might have the peace of God. 


416 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


There are many men about us whom the world 
regards as successful who are really defeated. Peo- 
ple looking on envy them, and eall them successes, 
but from every high point of view they are failures. 
Here is a man who has made a success of every- 
thing he attempted in business. Everything his 
fingers touch seems to change to gold, and he con- 
gratulates himself, and his friends congratulate 
him, that he has conquered the world. But is it 
true? Has he conquered the world, or has the 
world conquered him? How has it been with his 
successes? Have they helped him to see God? 
Have they deepened his faith and his hope and 
his love? Have they made him a better citizen, a 
truer husband, a wiser, kinder father, a simpler, 
sweeter Christian? Or have his success and his 
conquest of material things hid God from him, and 
turned him into a mere money-bag or a safe- 
deposit vault? Such life victories are the worst 
defeats. They are like the story about the soldier, 
who shouted to his comrades through the darkness 
that he had caught a prisoner. His officer shouted 
back to him, ‘‘Bring him in.’’ And the soldier 
answered, ‘‘But he won’t come.’’ ‘‘Then come 
yourself.’’ And the answer was, ‘‘He won’t let 
me.’’ There are many men who count themselves 
victors who are the prisoners of their very suc- 


FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST 417 


cesses. The world has chained them and clipt 
their wings, and made mere human moles of them. 


II 


We are tempted as Christ was to treat our faith 
in God as an experiment rather than what it is, 
an experience. Take the story as it is given us 
here, “‘The devil taketh him up into the holy 
city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, 
and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, 
east thyself down.’’ This is a temptation to pre- 
sume upon God’s mercy to us. Professor A. Morris 
Stewart, in his illuminating book on ‘‘The Temp- 
tation of Jesus,’’ says that in this view we see 
our Lord tempted to indulge in a spectacular effect 
which he would have none of. His lowly, natural, 
human birth was the entrance God chose for Jesus 
to the world. His baptism, along with those who 
sought to ‘‘fulfil righteousness,’’? was the entry 
he himself chose to his ministry. These have given 
us the Savior who is near to us, while close to 
God; round them gather countless reverent as- 
sociations of faith’s endearment. Compare with 
them the tempter’s gaudy project! He would have 
annulled the holy simplicity, and would have led 
Jesus forth as a supernatural acrobat. Christ’s 
reply, ‘‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,’? 


418 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


is his distinct refusal to prostitute his divine power 
to a use which is merely theatrical. All the mir- 
acles of Jesus served a purpose of mercy, or were 
instructive as large object-lessons; and he never 
stooped to the performance of a merely impressive 
work of wonder. 

There should be for us in this a warning against 
rashness and presumption and prideful display. 
Satan often appears as an angel of light to lead us 
out of the paths of duty and safety, under the 
pretext of trust in God. This wile may invite us 
to recklessness of any sort and to the abuse of 
divine care by trying to make it serve foolhardi- 
ness. We may rush into danger, praying for 
preservation, when our first need is pardon. Such 
snares beset religious life. Experience abounds in 
spiritual precipices, and we need to walk ecau- 
tiously. We say that we are sons of God in Christ, 
and the tempter says, ‘‘Yes, and as sons ye may 
have much liberty; go where you will, do what 
you will, God will keep you from harm.’’ Many 
souls have gone to ruin on that road. Instead of 
seeking circumstances of difficulty that grace and 
power may abound, we must avoid danger when- 
ever we seek our Father’s care; and his answer 
may come in successful avoidance rather than in 
rescue. If you are where God puts you, he will 


FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST 419 


meet you where you are. And if he sends you or 
beckons you across a rough and discouraging way, 
you may go forward in faith to the place he has 
appointed, and he will guard your way. It is not 
for us to tempt God; but trust him and obey. 


III 


We are often tempted as Jesus was to make con- 
quest without bearing the cross. As we follow this 
story of Christ in the wilderness, we read, ‘‘The 
devil taketh him up into an exceeding high moun- 
tain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the 
world, and the glory of them; and saith unto him, 
All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall 
down and worship me.’’ This was a temptation 
to the conquest of the world without suffering and 
without sacrifice. Mr. F. B. Meyer says that this 
seems to have been a continual temptation with 
Jesus. Again and again Satan returned to the 
onset, seeking to tempt Christ to evade the cross. 
Apparently all through his life that was the one 
great temptation suggested to him, because some 
months before he died on the cross, when Peter said 
in substance, answering Jesus, who had spoken of 
the death that was to come, ‘‘Spare thyself, spare 
thyself, do not do it, do not think of it,’’ Christ 
turned sharply to him and said in substance, ‘‘ That 


420 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


is what Satan is saying to me all the time. Get 
thee behind me, thou who speakest with his voice. 
I will not listen to thee, for this temptation is the 
one above all things that cuts me to the heart.’’ 
At this time Christ was very successful. Crowds 
flocked about him to hear him preach, and multi- 
tudes came to be healed of their sickness. And 
looking at it from human standards it seemed a 
pity to stop doing so much good and throw away 
his life on the cross. So Satan seems to have kept 
suggesting to him, ‘‘Keep on doing as thou art 
doing; go on teaching; go on healing; go on 
blessing men.’’ And that is the temptation that 
is coming to men all the time now. Satan is 
always trying to get us to save ourselves when 
the duty of Christlike service is calling to us. He 
comes to the young missionary with the same sug- 
gestion of the danger about risk in foreign lands. 
He is forever appealing to us to take our ease and 
save our strength when the call of human need is 
stirring in our hearts and consciences. My broth- 
ers, Christ could not save the world except by way 
of the cross. It cost the life-blood of the Son of 
God to make our pardon possible, and we cannot 
do the work which God has for us to do in the 
world without the cross. We must not choose the 
easy path. We must not take the broad road. We 


FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST 421 


must walk with Jesus. We must bear our bur- 
dens as he did. We must keep close to God in the 
path of duty if we would share his eternal triumph. 


IV 


Christ conquered and we must conquer by out- 
_ spoken loyalty in our relation to God. Hear these 
ringing answers of Jesus, ‘‘Man shall not live by 
bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out 
of the mouth of God.’’ And again, ‘‘Thou shalt 
not tempt the Lord thy God.’’ And yet again, 
““Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, thou shalt 
worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt 
thou serve.’’ Christ shows us the way to victory 
by straight-out, open loyalty to God. The man 
who does that has no perplexity about what is 
right. Shakespeare tells us that when we begin to 
quibble and hesitate, ‘‘The native hue of resolu- 
tion’’ may become ‘“‘sicklied o’er with the pale 
east of thought.’’ But if we steadfastly take the 
straight line, ‘‘as the crow flies,’’ in loyalty to 
God, we have no such trouble. Once recognize a 
duty clearly and plainly, and you may know that 
it will claim its due; it is not to be bullied, or 
wheedled, or cajoled; it cannot be adapted, or 
softened, or relaxed. There is no way out of duty 
but the way through it, and Christ has pointed 
the way for us. 


422 SHRMUONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


See how Christ clings to the Scriptures. It is 
an example for us. I have heard of a humble but 
holy Christian who once went about his village 
repeating sentences of Scripture, and saying after 
each, ‘‘Measure yourself against that.’’ ‘* ‘Honor 
thy father and thy mother;’ measure yourself 
against that.’’ ‘‘ ‘Thou shalt not covet;’ measure 
yourself against that.’’ ‘‘ ‘Blessed are the pure in 
heart ;’ measure yourself against that.’? Many of 
you remember David Copperfield, the wonderful 
creation of Charles Dickens. At an early age he 
became an outcast, and was thrown out upon the 
streets, and into the vortex of temptation, but in 
all his wanderings he carried in his mind a picture 
of his mother. It was with him as he trudged 
through the hop country. It was with him as he 
lay down to sleep at night. It was with him as he 
awoke in the morning. Before him at all times, 
as he walked through the dingy streets of London, 
and as he gazed at the strange people, was this 
picture of his mother. It kept him pure. My 
friends, let us firmly establish in our hearts a 
picture of Jesus Christ, and when temptations come 
to us from base companions or evil thoughts, the 
picture of Jesus dwelling there in our hearts will 
furnish us a standard against which we may meas- 
ure ourselves and stand strong for God. 


FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST 423 


Vv 


If we are faithful under temptation, as Jesus 
was, we, too, shall have the divine comfort which 
came to him. We read in the issue of this wonder- 
ful story of temptation, that after the devil left 
Jesus, ‘‘Angels came and ministered unto him,”’ 
and later that he returned to his work in ‘‘the 
power of the Spirit.’’ To the sincere and faithful 
Christian no trial shall be without its fellowship, 
and it is the loneliness of the fight that is the hard- 
est to bear. 

Donald Sage Mackay tells how he once crossed 
the Atlantic in winter. He had been shut down in 
the cabin for several days, but one afternoon, just 
before nightfall, when the wet, wintry sunset 
smeared the southern sky, he crawled up to the 
slippery, solitary decks. Around him was the 
great waste of waters, heaving like a fevered bosom, 
and already black with the shadows of approaching 
night. There was not a human being that he could 
see on deck, and he never felt more acutely the 
sense of absolute loneliness. On every hand were 
the tumbling, chasing, foam-streaked waves; un- 
derneath the creaking, laboring ship, but not a sign 
of life in the darkening day. Just as he was about 
to go down to the warmly-lighted cabin, suddenly 
upon the ragged edge of the horizon he saw the 


424 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


flashing of a light. Nearer and nearer it drew, and 
in a few minutes he picked out the lines of a gaily- 
lighted ship upon its voyage. Signals were ex- 
changed, and in its presence there came into that 
wintry night a sense of fellowship which destroyed 
th: loneliness that a few moments before had been 
So oppressive. 

Now is it not like that when some great trial, 
some fierce temptation, sweeps over the soul? Is 
it not this sense of utter loneliness which is the 
hardest thing to bear? There is a solitariness in 
many great sorrows and trials which seems to cut 
us off from the ordinary friendships of life. Again 
and again men and women say to me, ‘‘No one can 
realize how much I have to bear, or how much I 
have come through.’’ And it is that sense of loneli- 
ness that makes so many people desperate—makes 
them lose faith and courage, lose all interest in life, 
so that they are ready to turn anywhere, go any- 
where, do anything but the right thing, so as to 
forget the intolerable loneliness of their hearts. 
And thus discouragement, becomes so often the ves- 
tibule of temptation and defeat. But, my dear 
friends, if we are faithful to God in resistance. to 
evil, and loyal as Christ was, his angels shall come 
and minister to us. We shall not go alone through 
the fiery furnace, but ‘‘the form of the fourth’’ 


FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST 425 


shall be with us. We shall not go alone into the 
den of lions, for the angel that guarded Daniel 
shall be with us. God’s angels are still ministers 
of mercy to his children, and consoled and com- 
forted by them we shall, as did Christ, return to 
our work ‘‘in the power of the Spirit.’’ 

Christ comes back from the wilderness of temp- 
tation with a new note of power, and goes forth to 
his ministry with a strong, courageous joy we have 
not noted before. So if we will bear our trials and 
endure our temptations in like spirit, they will 
enrich us with new beauty and strength. 


“Perhaps you have heard of the method strange, 
Of violin makers in distant lands. 
Who by breaking and mending with skilful hands, 
Make instruments having a wider range 
Than ever was possible for them, so long 
As they were new, unshattered and strong. 


“Have you ever thought when the heart was sad, 
When the days seemed dark and the nights unending, 
That the broken heart by the Father’s mending 
Was made through sorrow a helper glad, 
Whose service should lighten more and more 
The worried one’s burdens as never before? 


“Then take this simple lesson to heart 
When sorrows crowd and you cannot sing, 
To the truth of the Father’s goodness cling; 
Believe that the sorrow is only a part 
Of the wondrous plan that gives through pain, 
The power to sing a more glad refrain.” 


‘ Matra i y 
‘ iilig th aK 4, 
pen yi, hi \ 
ph aby 
Mi a NY) 
it aa 


aa 


HE THRONE OF LOVE 


THE THRONE OF LOVE 


“God is love.”—I. John IV: 8. 


HE old Greeks, whose civilization developed 
along the line of architecture, and painting, 
and the decorative arts, said, ‘‘God is beauty.’’ The 
Romans, led by the Cesars on a hundred battle- 
fields to victory, until they boasted that the Roman 
eagles never turned backward, said, ‘‘God is 
strength.’’ The Jew, inheriting from Moses, the 
great law-giver, said, ‘‘God is law.’’ It was not 
until John had laid his head upon the Savior’s 
bosom and communed with Jesus Christ that any 
man was able to say with confident heart, ‘‘God is 
love.”’ 
I 
Love is the link between man and God. If we 
had to make God love us, we should give up in 
despair. It is the fact that God does love us, 
even in our unworthiness, that gives us hope. 
Mark Guy Pearse says that one of his boys said 
to the other, in his hearing, and in a threatening | 
tone, ‘‘You must be good, you know, or father 
won’t love you.’’ The father who was listening 


429 


i 


e when you are good. I love you because I cannot 


i 
! D . 
yiate 
i Ne ig 
ony 
Hy Oa 
uae) 


Si Sal 


\ 


vf 
pa 
y 


ora! 


0” ye gee says ‘‘As one whom his mother comforteth, 


4 


4e 


430 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


called the son who had spoken and said, gravely 
and tenderly, ‘‘Do you know what you have said? 
It is not true, my boy, not a bit true; you never 
made a bigger mistake, my son. I don’t love you 
because you are good. There are lots of boys, but 


_ I love you, just because you are my own little son. 


If you grow up to become the worst man, I shall 
love you with a love that will break my heart, 
but I shall love you still. I don’t love you only 


help loving you. When you are good I love you 
with a love that makes me glad, and when you are 
not good I love you with a love that makes me 
sad.’’ ‘‘Is that it?’’ said the boy. ‘‘Then I will 
be good, father.’’ God’s love is not conditioned. 
Nothing you can ever do, nothing you can ever feel 
or believe, nothing you can ever be, will make God 
love you more than he does. When we really get 
this into our hearts and stay our hearts on it, it 
banishes all real loneliness from the world for us. 
How tender are some of these illustrations used in 
, the Bible to express this love of God. Take the one 
so will I comfort you.’’ How many of us who are 
getting on in life love to let our thoughts run back 
into the sweet old days of childhood, days that live 
only in our memories. And the center of every 


THE THRONE OF LOVE { 431 


picture which memory and imagination paint of 
those rare old days is the loving figure of mother. 
We remember in times of trouble how natural it 
was to go to her for comfort, and how we never 
went in vain. And now since we are men and 


women, and have children of our own, and possibly — 


grandchildren, still there are hard days, and trying 
_ times, and cruel disappointments and heartaches, 
which come to us sometimes, when we find our- 
selves wishing that we could go back to mother as 
we did when we were children, and put the aching 
head between her knees, and feel her caressing hand 
upon our hair, and her kiss on the hot cheek. But 
those days will never come back to us. The mother 
is separated from us by a thousand miles perhaps, 
or perchance by the river of death. Her comfort 
is only that which memory holds. But there is 
One who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for- 
ever; whose very essence is love, and whose com- 
fort is like a mother’s; and tho our sorrow and 
trouble may be our own fault, the mother-heart of 
God will not turn us away because of that. 

I saw a story the other day of a little boy who 
said to his mother, ‘‘If I could say anything to 
God, I would say, ‘God, love me when I am 
naughty.’ ”’ 
of our hearts, that God may love us when we are 


And is not this the cry of every one 


432 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS ) 


naughty? And this is what God does, for God is 
love. As Dr. Strayer says: The sun cannot shine — 
upon the just, and not upon the unjust, for the sun 
is light, and it cannot help shining. God cannot 
love one and withhold his love from another, for 
God is love, and he cannot help loving. He loves 
us when we are good; and when we are bad he 
loves us still. He loves some with the love of pity, 
and others with the love of pride; he loves some 
with the love of compassion, and others with the 
love of complacency. But he loves us all, and will 
never cease from loving us, no matter how far we 
stray from him. If some are lost, it is because 
they will become so estranged from good, so loyve- 
less, that God’s love no longer affects them; but. it 
will still be theirs, and will follow them even down 
to doom. uxvdé Thesr Dorn will pregy Ars 


II 


The paragraph connected with out text brings 
out very clearly that it was God’s love that gave 
Jesus to be our Savior. The life and death and 
resurrection of Jesus Christ are true manifestations 
of the love of God. John says: ‘‘He that loveth 
not, knoweth not God; for God is love. In this 
was manifested the love of God toward us, be- 
cause that God sent his only begotten Son into the 
world, that we might live through him. Herein 


i 


THE THRONE OF LOVE 433 


is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved 
us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our 
sins.’’ We have here manifested the harmony be- 
tween God’s justice and God’s love. In this scrip- 
ture we see how love and righteousness are each 
vindicated and satisfied. God puts away the con- 
demnation of our sins by laying it on his own dear 
Son. Christ, as pure and spotless as the Eternal 
Father himself, took our place: ‘‘He hath borne 
our griefs, and carried our sorrows: . . . He 
was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised 
for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace 
was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 
All we like sheep have, gone astray: we have 
turned every one to his own way; and the Lord 
hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.’’ As has 
been well said by another, the death of Jesus was 
more than the sacrifice of Christ: It was the sac- 
rifice of God. The blood of Jesus, an apostle says, 
was the blood of God. ‘‘God commendeth his love 
toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, 
Christ died for us.”’ 

No gospel is worth preaching to sinning men and 
women that leaves out the stupendous fact that 
Jesus Christ died on the cross as a sacrifice for 
sin—a propitiation for us. Dr. Denney, the Eng- 
lish scholar, tells this story: A friend of his was 


434 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


a convert of Mr. Moody’s and has himself become 
very useful as an evangelist and greatly blest 
in the conversion of souls. This man is “‘a fishing- 
tackle maker,’’ and an enthusiastic fisherman, and 
he told Dr. Denney once of losing his bait in a 
mysterious way without catching anything. The 
explanation was that by some accident or other 
the barb had been broken from the hook. And 
then the evangelist said, ‘‘This is exactly what 
happens when people preach the love of God to 
men, but leave out of their gospel the essential 
truth that it is Christ on the cross, the substitute 
for sinners, in whom that love is revealed. The 
condemnation of our sins in Christ upon the cross 
is the barb on the hook. If you leave that out of 
your gospel, I do not deny that the bait will be 
taken; men are pleased rather than not to think 
that God regards them with good-will: Your bait 
will be taken, but you will not catch men.’’ There 
is no doubt that this is true. No preaching of 
Christ is ‘‘the power of God unto salvation’’ that 
leaves out the secret of that power. Theories of 
the atonement may change, and doubtless will 
change from age to age, and the water of life will 
alter its shape with the vessel that holds it, but the 
water itself never changes. And that river of life 
only flows from the cross of Christ. 


Mbnake - Pronto rt - 


THE THRONE OF LOVE 435 


Ii 


The consciousness that God is love robs death of 
its power to frighten, and makes the ‘‘King of 
Shadows’’ our servant. It has been often said that 
death makes pagans of us all, and that in our views 
of death we come nearer reverting to heathenism 
than anywhere else. It is undoubtedly due to 
the frailty of human nature that the most pagan 
ceremony in Christian lands is a funeral, and many 
of our artists have only deepened this gloom by 
their pictures. But George Frederick Watts, who 
was himself a most devout Christian, did much to 
Christianize death by his art. Dr. Thomas Phillips, 
describing the works of Watts in the Tate Gallery 
in London, says that more than any other artist 


he has helped us to think of death as Jesus thought 


of it, as the sleep which the Father gives to his 
beloved. He speaks of death as the kindly nurse 
which puts the tired children to bed. In his ‘‘ Court 
of Death’’ he represents it as a queenly figure sit- 
ting on a throne, to which the people of the world 
draw near. The old king comes, yielding up his 
crown, as if he were glad to get rid of what had 
caused him vexation and sorrow. The strong soldier 
lays down his sword in the prime of his days, and 
surrenders his life in the glory of his strength. 
The suffering cripple draws near for relief, and an 


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436 SERIiONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


old matron waits for rest with an appealing look 
for Death to take her. An invalid places her head 
wearily to rest on the knee of Death, and a littie 
child plays unconsciously with the folds of her 
dress, dying without knowing it, dying almost in 
play. Behind stand the figures of Silence and 
Mystery, watching the threshold of the unknowa 
and the unseen. In the lap of Death there is a 
little child, to suggest that death itself is but a 
birth to the larger life beyond. In the background 
of the picture there is the suggestion of the dawn, 
and it is a significant fact that, as the years rolled 
on and the painter perfected his picture, he made 
the background brighter and brighter. We all know 
something about the ambition of wealthy and 
famous people to be presented at court in lands 
where there is a king or a queen. That was Watts’ 
idea of death—presentation at court. 

The same artist has another ‘picture called 
‘Death and Love.’’ Death is represented as a fine, 
graceful, womanly figure entering into a house 
whose door is embowered with roses, the emblems 
of happiness and youthfulness and joy. On the 
doorstep is the figure of Cupid, the young god of 
love, endeavoring with unavailing agony to push 
Death away. His wings are wounded in the effort, 
and the fair roses fall withered at the touch of 


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THE THRONE OF LOVE 437 


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Death. Death herself goes forward with bowed 
head, as if sorry for her work, and with out- 
stretched arms, as if not to be averted. As you 
look at the figure you say: How beautiful, and yet 
what a stern beauty! How gentle, and yet what an 
inexorable gentleness! The back of Death is il- 
lumined by a light that comes from beyond, and is 
transfigured by the light that comes from eternity. 
The painter seems to desire to suggest that death 
looked at from behind is often beautiful with a 
hallowed light. 

Watts contradicts the popular view of death in 
another respect. We are accustomed to think that 
death is most cruel when it snatches away the life 
of a little child, or smites down a youth in the 
blossom of his days; but Watts pictures this as the 
most beautiful aspect of death. In one of his paint- 
ings he represents it as ‘‘Death Crowning Inno- 
eence.’’? Death is represented as a gentle mother 
encircling the brow of a young child with ineffable 
tenderness. The artist’s thought is that to a child 
death means play and coronation. 

Now all these pictures are supremely Christian. 
They are simply putting on the canvas the won- 
derful revelation of our text that ‘‘God is love.’’ 
When we yield our hearts to him, and are cleansed 
from our sins through Jesus Christ, and live in the 


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438 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


consciousness of God’s love,*death ceases to be an 
enemy, Kaatkh GA \y ise = 
IV 

‘As God is love, it naturally follows that it is 
our love, and our love only, which can give value 
to our service to God. Some people have thought 
that there was an incongruity between ‘‘the fear 
of God,’’ that has been called the master-phrase of 
the Old Testament, and ‘‘God is love,’’ the domi- 
nant phrase of the New Testament. But the fear of 
God is perfectly in harmony with the love of God. 
The young man who resists temptation to evil, not 
because he is afraid of being found out, but be- 
cause he reverences the loving prayers of his distant 
mother, acts in the fear of his mother; and that 
is the best analogy one can possibly have of the 
fear of God which is taught in the Bible. Lord 
Roberts, the famous English general, speaking to 
a company of boys in London, recently, said: *‘You 
will find it very helpful in your struggle if you 
ean bring home to yourselves the absolute truth of 
two great sayings, ‘Thou God seest me’ and “God is 
love.” If you can realize that in all times and in 
all places you are ever in the sight of God who 
loves you, it will help you to fight against doing 
before him what you would be ashamed to do in 
the sight of those you love here on earth,’’ 


THE THRONE OF LOVE 439 


There is a very precious comfort in the assur- 
ance that if we bring the best service we can to 
God, however humble it may seem, in the light of 
God’s love it will be glorified. There is a simple 
old Hastern legend which very beautifully illus- 
trates this thought. This Oriental legend tells of 
a king who, on his birthday, sat on his throne 
among his subjects, while his subjects brought 
their presents to him, to show how much they loved 
him. The merchant brought his pearls from the 
sea, and the man who had great possessions brought 
tithes of his possessions and laid them at his feet. 
The rich came to bring him their wealth, and the 
scholar eame and brought the first-fruits of his 
learning. And all made their tribute-offering to 
the king. But there was one poor woman who had 
nothing in the world to give. All she had was but 
a farthing, and she said: ‘‘I cannot take him that.”’ 
Then she thought, ‘‘Yes, I will take him that, for 
he is wise. He will not think I only love him a 
farthing’s worth.’’ So she went to the king, sit- 
ting on his throne, and he held out his hand, ‘and 
she dropt her farthing in, and turned her head 
away and went on. But she had not gone far be- 
fore she felt a hand on her shoulder; and she saw 
it was the king who held out his hand. There was 
a gold coin in it, and he said, ‘‘ You gave me this?”’ 


440 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


‘“No,’’ she said, ‘‘I did not give you that; I have 
not seen one of those for ever so long.’’ ‘‘Oh,’’ he 
said, ‘‘but you did; I have held it in my hand 
ever since.’’ ‘‘No,’’ she answered, ‘‘I did not 
give you that.’’ ‘‘ Well, take it in your hand.”’ 
And she took it in her hand, and it was nothing 
but a farthing. And she put it in the king’s hand, 
and it was a gold coin again! 

That old legend is full of beautiful meaning as 
illustrating our theme. Our lives sometimes seem 
very valueless when we keep them for ourselves 
selfishly; but when we put them in the King’s 
hand and see what he does with them, and how 
they are transfigured and transformed, we are 
amazed at what we behold. Let us put ourselves 
completely in the hand of God. If we will do 
that, he will multiply us a hundredfold. Let us 
not hold back that which it is within our power to 
give to carry the Gospel to the heathen, or lift the 
burden from the shoulders of God’s poor. Tho it 
seems little in our hands, if with loving purpose 
we put it in the hands of God it shall be multiplied 
under his touch of infinite love. The word of sym- 
pathy it is our chance to speak, tho it be as humble 
as the ‘‘cup of cold water’’ that Jesus blesses, be- 
comes a great thing when the loving countenance 
of God shines upon it. 


fe 


THE THRONE OF LOVE 44] 


And there must be some of you here who need 
another phase of this message. You have held your- 
self back from God’s guidance. You have gone 
your own way, and, it may be, hardened your 
heart against God’s love. My friend, no one can 
make so much out of you as God. Give yourself 
to him. Open your heart to his love, and a nobler 
character, a holier personality, a diviner career 
shall open to you than any that you have ever 
dreamed of. Some poet making this consecration 
has sung what should inspire your heart: 


“T launch my bark upon thy sea, 
Dear Lord of all, 

Knowing thou wilt be near to me 
Whate’er befall, 

And that thro’ all life’s mystery 
Naught can appal. 


“J launch my bark upon thy sea, 
Most blessed Lord, 

For thine own voice has called to me, 
And I have heard 

Thy love-song sung so pleadingly 
My soul has stirred. 


“T launch my bark upon thy sea, 
And now away! 

My hopes and help are all from thee; 
And rising day 

Doth scatter myriad lights so free 
That gem the spray. 


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THE INDWELLING CHRIST 


“Christ in you, the hope of, glory.”—Colossians I: 27. 


PURGEON says that when Christ once enters 
into a soul, by degrees he occupies the whole of 

it. And he illustrates it with the legend of a man 
whose garden produced nothing but weeds, till at 
last he met with a strange foreign fiower of singular 
vitality. The story is that he sowed a handful of 
this seed in his overgrown garden, and left it to 
work its own sweet way. He slept and rose, and 
knew not how the seed was growing, till one day 


he opened the gate and saw a sight which much 


astonished him. He lmew that the seed would pro- 
duce a dainty flower, and he looked for it; but he 
had little dreamed that the plant would cover the 
whole garden. But so it was: the fiower had ex- 
terminated every weed, till as he looked, from one 
end to the other, from wall to wall, he could see 
nothing but the fair colors of that rare plant and 
smell nothing but its delicious perfume. Christ is 
that plant of renown. If he be sown in the soil of 
your soul, he will gradually eat out the roots of all 
ill weeds and poisonous plants, till over all your 


er 


446 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


nature there shall be Christ in you, the hope of 
glory. 
I 

Christ in us awakens hope of a glorious person- 
ality. When a man is conscious that he has opened 
his heart to the coming of Christ, and that his 
Savior is influencing his life, it enlarges his idea 
of his own possibilities. Dr. Jowett says that once 
an old villager who lived in a little hamlet situated 
on a high hill said to him concerning the air of 
his town: ‘‘Ay, sir, it’s a fine air is this westerly 
breeze; I like to think of it as having traveled 
from the distant fields of the Atlantic!’’ And so 
to the apostle Paul, with the quickening wind of 
redemption blowing about him, in vitalizing, 
strengthening influence, it seemed to him to have 
had its birth in the distant fields of eternity! To 
Paul’s thinking, redemption was no after-thought, 
no patched-up expedient to meet an unforeseen 
emergency. Paul saw in it ‘‘The eternal purpose 
which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.’’ 
Christ was dwelling in him, so that he could say 
that it was no more Paul that was living, but 
Christ living within him. This is the source of 
Paul’s triumphant optimism which breathes 
through all his writings. To Paul’s idea human life 
was glorified by this wonderful presence of Jesus in 


THE INDWELLING CHRIST 447 


the heart. Recall some of his sentences which in- 
dicate this feeling. Listen to him as he says: ‘‘The 
unsearchable riches of Christ;’’ ‘‘Riches in glory 
in Christ Jesus;’’ ‘‘The riches of his goodness and 
forbearance and long suffering.’’ There is the 
atmosphere of the spiritual millionaire glowing in 
such utterances. This presence of Jesus in the 
heart gave Paul a consciousness of freedom from 
the guilt and power of sin. Hear him as he says, 
“But now being made free from sin, and become 
servants to God;’’ again ‘‘But now in Christ 
Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in 
the blood of Christ.’’ Again ‘ear him say, ‘‘There 
is therefore now no condemnation to them that are 
in Christ Jesus.’’ These reveal to us what a won- 
derful thing this new Christian life was to Paul. 
For him a new day had dawned, and the birds 
began to sing, and the flowers to bloom, and a 
sunny optimism took possession of his heart. We 
have only to give Christ the right of way in our 
hearts, as Paul did in his, to put to work all those 
dynamic spiritual forces of which Paul is always 
talking in his letters. You take up these letters of 
Paul to the different churches, and you will read 
of the wonderful spiritual ministries at work in 
hearts surrendered to Christ: ‘‘The Holy Spirit 
worketh!’’ ‘‘Grace worketh!’’ ‘‘Faith worketh!’’ 


448 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


‘‘Love worketh!’’ ‘‘Hope worketh!’’ ‘‘Prayer 
worketh!’’ Yes, and other things that we are likely 
to count as our enemies are drafted into our service 
when we are really Christ’s. Hear Paul as he 
speaks of them: ‘‘Tribulation worketh.’’ ‘‘This 
light affliction worketh.’’ ‘‘Godly sorrow worketh.’’ 
Paul sees everything working together for good to 
them that love God. But we must not forget that 
the source of all this wonderful spiritual chem- 
istry which brings everything to our aid comes 
from the dominance of Jesus Christ in us. I have 
seen some apt lines that go back through the cen- 
turies and are attributed to St. Patrick, the old 
Irish patron saint, whether rightly or not I do not 
know, but they express what ought to be the inmost 
sentiment of the Christian heart in the daily 
journey through life: 


“Christ with me, Christ before me, 

Christ behind me, Christ within me, 

Christ beneath me, Christ above me, 

Christ at my right, Christ at my left, 

Christ in the fort, 

Christ in the chariot seat, 

Christ in the poop, 

Christ * the heart of every man who thinks of me, 
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks to me, 
Christ in every eye that sees me, 

Christ in every ear that hears me.” 


THE INDWELLING CHRIST 449 


II 


Christ in us assures glorious service on our part. 
Christianity lacks the credentials of genuineness 
when faith and joy do not issue into service. We 
are the disciples of Him who went about doing 
good. I have seen this legend, which is told in the 
Greek Church. It is related of two of its favorite 
saints, St. Cassianus and St. Nicholas. Cassianus, 
in beautiful robes, entered heaven. ‘‘ What hast 
thou seen on earth, Cassianus?’’ asked the Lord. 
“I saw,’’ he answered, ‘‘a peasant floundering with 
his wagon in the marsh.’’ ‘‘Didst thou help him ?’’ 
“*No.’’ ‘“Why not?’’ ‘‘I was coming before thee,’’ 
said St. Cassianus, ‘‘and I was afraid of soiling 
my white robes.’’ Just then St. Nicholas entered 
heaven, all covered with mud and mire. ‘‘Why so 
stained and so soiled, St. Nicholas?’’ said the Lord. 
“I saw a peasant floundering in the marsh,’’ said 
St. Nicholas, ‘‘and I put my shoulder to the wheel 
and helped him out.’’ ‘‘Blest art thou,’’ answered 
the Lord. ‘‘Thou didst well; thou didst better 
than St. Cassianus.’? And the Lord blest St. 
Nicholas with a fourfold blessing. 

The glory of Christian service, that which gives 
it its dignity, its romance, and its supreme beauty, 
is that we do it out of love for Christ and a con- 
sciousness that we are sharing with him. I have 


450 SHRMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


been reading recently an address by Dr. Horton, 
the English preacher, on that wonderful man, 
Francis of Assisi. Under Francis there grew up a 
wonderful revival of real Christianity. To him 
Christ meant love, and love meant self-giving. To 
have attained to Christ meant to have found out 
that life, to be true life, consists in love of others. 
If God so love the world, if God has made the 
world, and is lavishing his love upon it, then the 
Christian whose life is hid with Christ in God 
must let his heart go out in love and sacrifice to 
all creation. Francis simply let the Christ-life 
that was in him energize. He allowed it to come 
out, and that meant love. As he moved about it 
was like some magic influence producing flowers 
and sunshine in a gloomy desert. The weary world 
stretched itself and woke to fresh life in the morn- 
ing breeze of his breath of love and hope. Men 
felt that God was still alive and at work; that the 
Lord Jesus was at hand; that the Spirit was 
brooding yet. They were not forgotten; not alone; 
they were cared for. Love was still an active force 
that could heal, and tend, and succor. Francis 
showed men that he believed in the possibility of 
their complete recovery and restoration into the 
image of God. He never despaired of any, or de- 
spised any. No action of love was too small to be 


THE INDWELLING CHRIST 451 


worth doing, and worth doing well. He aimed at 
| creating in others a sense of their own dignity as 
children of God, and their own power as members 
of the body of Christ. When we read of such a 
life we are likely to lose the great benefit that we 
might receive from it by a feeling that it is the life 
of a genius, impossible to ordinary mortals; but 
we cheat ourselves in that way. There is no genius 
here save the genius of complete obedience to God 
and perfect welcome to Jesus Christ. The secret of 
Francis’s power was in this, that he was in love 
with Jesus Christ, and his love infected other men 
with love of Jesus, too. As we study such a life it 
ought to make us ashamed of the poor result of 
religion in our lives; it should send us back to the 
Gospel to catch once more the Spirit of the Lord. 
Oh, the world needs so much men and women of 
this type, not here and there a genius, but multi- 
tudes of them who shall be the incarnation of Him 
who went about doing good. Such a personality is 
sustained by bread from heaven. Matthew Arnold 
once, in the heat of the summer, met a minister 
whom he knew in the East London slums, and was 
so imprest with the tremendous burdens the man 
carried, and the great joy and comfort he saw 
in his face, that he went away and wrote these 
verses : 


452 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


“°Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead 
Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal-green, 
And the pale weaver, through his windows seen 
In Spitalfields, look’d thrice dispirited. 


“TI met a preacher there I knew, and said: 

‘Ill and o’erworked, how fare you in this scene?” 

‘Bravely,’ said he; ‘for I of late have been 

Much cheer’d with thoughts of Christ—the living Bread.’ 


“OQ human soul! as long as thou canst so 
Set up a mail of everlasting light, 
Above the howling senses’ ebb and flow, 


“To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam, 
Not with lost toil thou laborest through the night, 
Thou mak’st the heaven thou hop’st indeed thy home.” 


You never hear of men who are giving them- 
selves for others like that asking whether life is 
worth living or not. You never hear of such people 
committing suicide. No, indeed; it is the bored 
sensualist; it is the man with jaded passions; it is 
the man given over to selfishness, who loses the 
zest and the enthusiasm of living. It is the life of 
service, glorified by the fellowship of Christ, that 
is the most glorious and virile life in the world. 


Tit 
Christ in us insures true happiness. Happiness 
is the prize toward which millions of men and 
women turn their faces. It is one of the things 


THE INDWELLING CHRIST 453 


that cannot be bought for gold. If it were to be 
had in the market what a millionaire’s auction 
there would be over it in our day. But great 
wealth is no security for happiness. Stephen 
Girard, who gathered together immense wealth, 
wrote toward the end of his life to a friend: ‘‘I 
toil like a galley slave, and often I cannot sleep at 
night. I set no value upon fortune. My chiefest 
emotion is simply to work.’’ Nathan Rothschild, 
one of the richest men who has ever lived on the 
earth, acknowledged the perfect failure of his life 
so far as happiness was concerned. When some 
one was speaking about his palatial home and its 
marvelous adornment, as making him happy, he 
sneered with great bitterness, ‘‘Happy! me 
happy?’’ It takes something more than money, or 
earthly goods of any sort to make men happy. 
There is a story of a man who so loved his gold 
that he hid it in a hole in the earth, and used 
to uncover the hole, take out the gold, and run it 
through his fingers, and feel that there, indeed, was 
life, and, there indeed, was happiness, and yet he 
had no rest. One day chance called him out, and 
when he came back his hoard of gold was gone, and 
in its place there lay a little child. Unwelcome was 
the exchange. But the trustful eyes of the child 
looked into the eyes of the man, gained on him, led 


454 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


him back from his sordid love of gold to be a gentle 
lover of men—trusted, revered, and loved. So 
great was the power of the child’s love that 
it made a miserly man a gracious son of humanity, 
and in doing so awoke the soul to far nobler happi- 
ness. 
Sylvester Horne recalls the famous lines in Omar 

Khayyam :— 

“A book of verses underneath the bough, 

A jug of wine, a loaf of bread—and thou 


Beside me singing in the wilderness, 
Oh! wilderness were Paradise enow,—” 


and declares that that is the philosophy of the 
epicure—an attractive materialism at the most. 
But when we think of Christ, and his coming into 
our human hearts and lives, bringing heaven’s love 
and fellowship down to earth’s scenes, there is a 
thought in these lines of Khayyam that thrills 
through one with a suggestion very far from the 
imagination of the Persian: 


“Thou 
Beside me, singing in the wilderness, 
Oh! wilderness were paradise enow.” 


Christ beside me singing his psalm of life: ‘‘Be of 
good cheer, I have overcome. Ye believe in God, 
believe also in me. He that believeth in me hath 
everlasting life. He that cometh unto me shall 
never hunger. Come unto me, and I will give you 


THR INDWELLING CHRIST 455 


rest. These things have I spoken unto you that 
your joy may be full. In the world ye shall have 
tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome 
the world.’’ It is when Christ is talking to us by 
the way, in words like that, that our burning 
hearts are ready to exclaim to him who is the 
Lover of our souls: 


“O thou 
Beside me, singing in the wilderness, 
Oh! wilderness were Paradise enow.” 


IV 


Christ in us gives hope of glory in heaven. 
David asks, ‘‘ Who shall ascend into the hill of the 
Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?’’ 
And the answer comes back clear and plain, ‘‘He 
that hath clean hands and pure heart; who hath 
not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn de- 
ceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the 
Lord, and righteousness from the God of his sal- 
yation. This is the generation of them that seek 
him, that seek thy face, O Jacob.’’ That is very 
straightforward and plain direction. If we are 
to go up the hill to heaven it is our own life that 
is the first matter to be taken into hand. Our deal- 
ings with men, are they clean? Are they straight? 
Will they bear the light? Could we bring them 
here on Sunday morning and justify them in God’s 


456 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


house? Our business—is it done honestly, without 
deceit? Is there no advantage taken by deceiving 
our fellows? It is that kind of a man to whom 
the door is open. It is of no use to put on a bold 
front and go up the hill in train with Christ’s 
followers unless the Master himself dwells in our 
hearts, purifying our motives, cleansing our hands 
from every evil thing. But when Jesus dwells in 
us, giving to our words and actions the beauty and 
charm of his own goodness and unselfishness, then 
the gates of heaven open, and we have no doubt of 
the glory that is to be. To such a man life’s trials 
are only steps by which he climbs upward. 
Theodore Cuyler tells how he once ascended 
Mount Washington by the old trail over the slip- 
pery rocks. A weary, disappointed company they 
were when they reached the cabin on the summit, 
and found it shut in by the clouds. But toward 
evening a mighty wind swept away the banks of 
mist, the body of the blue heavens stood out in its 
clearness, and before them was revealed the mag- 
nificent landscape, stretching away to the Atlantic 
Ocean. So faith’s stairways are often over steep 
and slippery rocks; often through blinding storms; 
but if Christ dwell in the heart, God never loses 
his hold on us, and in due time he brings us out 
into the clear shining after rain. To such a career 


THE INDWELLING CHRIST 457 


the growing years only bring nearer the triumph, 
the supreme victory of our lives. 


“They call it ‘going down the hill,’ 
When we are growing old, 

And speak with mournful accents 
When our tale is nearly told. 


“But it is not ‘going down, 

’Tis climbing high and higher, 
Until we almost see the mountain 
That our souls desire. 


“For, if the natural eye grows dim, 
It is but dim to earth; 
While the eye of faith grows keener 
To discern the Savior’s worth.” 


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THE CHRISTIAN’S 
DELIVERANCE FROM SIN 


2 


THE CHRISTIAN’S 
DELIVERANCE FROM SIN 


-“OQ wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me 
from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus 
Christ our Lord.”—Romans VII: 24, 25. 
I 
IN is one of the terrible, vital facts in human 
life. No man can slumber long to the awful 
truth that he must deal with this question of sin. 
The libraries of the world are full of discussions of 
the nature of sin. The poets, and the philosophers, 
as well as the teachers, have often pondered over it. 
Dr. Jowett, the famous English preacher, refers to 
Matthew Arnold’s assertion that sin is not a 
monster, but an infirmity. But Jowett says that 
when he takes Matthew Arnold’s statement into his 
own soul, into his own secret consciousness, it will 
not stand the test. If sin were only an infirmity, 
there would be no sense of guilt or burdensome 
shame. If your eyes have an infirmity, you have 
no sense of responsibility for it; but when you sin, 
you are conscious of more than infirmity. When 
we seek to label our sin as infirmity, our souls re- 


461 


462 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


ject the term in a consuming sense of their own 
shame. 

Edgar Allan Poe, whose own brilliant, but un- 
controlled and undisciplined, personality had sur- 
rendered the citadel of the heart to troops of evil 
passions, writes of sin as tho it were an evil spirit 
that overruns and captures the soul, something 
that man cannot help. In ‘‘The Haunted Palace”’ 
he voices this thought with brilliant phrase: 


“In the greenest of our valleys 
By good angels tenanted, 

Once a fair and stately palace— 
Radiant palace—reared its head. 

In the moaarch Thought’s dominion— 
It stood there! 

Never seraph spread a pinion 
Over fabric half so fair! 


“Banners yellow, glorious, golden, 
On its roof did float and flow, 

(This—all this—was in the olden 
Time, long ago), 

And every gentle air that dallied, 
In that sweet day, 

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, 
A winged odor went away. 


“Wanderers in that happy valley, 
Through two luminous windows, saw 

Spirits moving musically, 
To a lute’s well-tuned law, 

Round about a throne where, sitting 
(Prophyrogene!) 


THE CHRISTIAN’S DELIVERANCE 463 


In state his glory well befitting, 
The ruler of the realm was seen. 


“And all with pearl and ruby glowing 
Was the fair palace door, 
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing, 
And sparkling evermore, 
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty 
Was but to sing, 
In voices of surpassing beauty, 
The wit and wisdom of their king. 


“But evil things, in robes of sorrow, 
Assailed the monarch’s high estate. 
(Ah, let us mourn!—for never morrow 
Shall dawn upon him desolate!) 
And round about his home the glory 

That blushed and bloomed, 
Is but a dim-remembered story 
Of the old-time entombed. 


“And travelers, now, within that valley, 
Through the red-litten windows see 

Vast forms, that move fantastically 
To a discordant melody, 

While, like a ghastly rapid river, 
Through the pale door 

A hideous throng rush out forever 
And laugh—but smile no more.” 


Beautiful and pathetic as are these lines, we 
know in our own consciousness that the ‘‘evil 
things, in robes of sorrow’’ which ‘‘assailed the 
monarch’s high estate,’’ never could have captured 
it if there had not been treachery within the castle. 
It was because the monarch yielded to the invasion 


ea 


464 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


that he was overthrown, and his fair estate ravished. 
It is impossible that we can be despoiled by sin 
unless our own souls surrender to it. There is no 
more popular verse in the Bible than one of the 
last wonderful declarations of the New Testament 
which says: ‘‘Whosoever will may come!’’ One 
of our earnest evangelists recently said that he was 
afraid we had emphasized the word ‘‘ Whosoever”’ 
more than we had emphasized the word ‘‘will,’’ 
and yet salvation depends upon the will. And he 
goes on to declare that no man is ever beaten by 
sin without being a party to it. Take the poem 
quoted a moment ago. The brilliant Poe was a 
victim of strong drink. His life was utterly en- 
slaved and ruined by drunkenness. But he was a 
party to it. That vicious habit never could have 
handcuffed him without his consent. If passion 
holds you in its grip, and leaves you bankrupt of 
purity and strength; if you are erippled and 
paralyzed by sin, it is because you have consented 
to it. The devil said to Jesus when he was on the 
pinnacle of the temple, ‘‘Cast thyself down.’’ 
Satan had no power to cast Jesus down. He could 
not be overthrown unless he consented, and Christ 
refused to consent, and came off victorious. So the 
devil comes to you and tempts you to cast yourself 
down, because he has no power to cast you down. 


THE CHRISTIAN’S DELIVERANCE 465 


The whole thing rests in our own souls. The power 
of choice, of decision, is there. 


II 


Our text suggests to us that there is no possible 
escape from the sorrow and misery and sense of 
defilement which sin brings into the heart save by 
deliverance from sin itself. Punishment for sin 
is not an arbitrary thing. Sin carries the necessity 
for punishment within itself. Sim is rebellion 
against God, and separates from God. Jowett, to 
whose comment on the nature of sin I referred a 
moment ago, recalls that saying of the Scripture: 
**Your sins have separated between you and your 
God,’’ and goes on to emphasize the suggestion 
that sin is a kind of knife, which gets into the joint, 
and pries the limb asunder. You were intended to 
live and move and have your being in God, but 
your sins have disjointed you. But sin is not the 
separation; the separation is the consequence of 
the sin. When I sin, God is not away. I am pain- 
fully conscious that he is near. ‘‘I hear his voice, 
and even while I hear I revolt. I have sinned when 
God’s voice was calling to me like an alarm bell 
in the dead of night. My sin is not an ignorant 
quest of God. My sin is an illumined and fully 
conscious departure from God. He is there. I 


466 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


turn my back upon him.’’ And no man in that 
condition is happy. He is forever haunted, and 
the specter of his sin is liable at any moment to 
rise before him and condemn him. 

There is a Buddhist story which tells of a man 
who had lived wickedly and who became very ill 
and nigh unto death. In the fever he had a dream, 
and in this dream he was conducted through the 
under-world to the hall of justice in which the 
judges sat in curtained alcoves. He came op- 
posite his judge, and was told to write his mis- 
deeds upon a slate provided for that purpose. 
Sentence was then passed that he should be thrice 
struck by lightning for his sins. The curtain was 
then drawn back, and he faced his judge, to find 
there seated the very image of himself, and he 
realized that he had pronounced the verdict. He 
had unconsciously judged himself. And this is 
going on all the while. ‘‘Be sure your sin will 
find you out,’’? some people seem to think 
means that you are always in danger of being 
found out. But that is a very small thing com- 
pared to what it really does mean, that your sin 
is a thing so personal to yourself that you can never 
escape it. There is another passage which says, 
“‘He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own 
soul.’”’ The poet writes truly: 


+ ox 


THE CHRISTIAN’S DELIVERANCE 467 


“Tho no mortal e’er accused you, 
Tho no witness e’er confused you, 
Tho the darkness came and fell 
Over even deeds of hell; 


“Tho no sign nor any token 

Spake of one commandment broken, 
Tho the world should praise and bless 
And love add the fond caress; 


“Still your secret sin would find you, 
Pass before your eyes to blind you, 
Burns your heart with hidden shame, 
Scar your cheek with guilty flame. 


“Sin was never sinned in vain, 
It could always count its slain; 
You yourself must witness be 
To your own soul’s treachery.” 


III 


If we had to stop there, this would be a sad and 
hopeless sermon which no man would have a right 
to preach. But, thank God, there is deliverance. 
This chapter in Romans is a sad, dirge-like story 
clear through till we get past the first verse in the 
text, where Paul reaches the climax of his anguish 
in the exclamation, ‘‘O wretched man that I am! 
Who shall deliver me from the body of this death ?”’ 
But how different is the next verse: ‘‘I thank 
God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’’ Deliverance 
comes through Jesus Christ. How does it come? 


468 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WOW SOULS 


It comes through complete surrender on the part 
of the sinner—a surrender of his sin, a giving it up. 
And on the part of Jesus Christ a giving up of his 
divine nature to strengthen and bless his weak 
and suffering brother. But there can be no sal- 
vation without surrender to God through Jesus 
Christ. 

That most successful evangelist known as “‘Gipsy 
Smith”’ told recently how he was holding a series 
of meetings on one occasion in England when he 
received a letter asking for prayer, and telling a 
story of sorrow and tears. There was no name at- 
tached. The letter, however, awakened his interest 
so much that he waited for half an hour after the 
close of the meeting the next night, hoping the 
writer would make himself known, but he did not. 
On the Sunday, however, he came to the church and 
talked with the evangelist in a private room. He 
was a fine-looking man. He said, “‘I am the 
writer of that letter; I am the father of nine chil- 
dren, all of whom are living. My wife is very deli- 
cate. I have held a position of trust for thirty 
years, and am looked upon as a respectable citizen. 
I am a fraud.’’ He then went on to relate that 
twenty-five years before he was a gambler, and 
stole five hundred dollars from his employer, and 
so covered it up in his books that the theft was 


—— 


THE CHRISTIAN’S DELIVERANCE 469 


never known. He had never been able to get the 
five hundred dollars to repay it, but had never 
gambled again, and continued: ‘‘You don’t know 
the hell I have been carrying about ever since. 
Three times I have presented myself to a church 
for membership, for I wanted to be a good man, 
but when I got to the church I dared not enter. 
It seemed as if that five hundred dollars stood up 
and said, ‘You dare not enter. The sheep will 
bleat, the oxen will low, and will be heard.’ The 
only way to silence them is death. In your ser- 
mon you said ‘Slay utterly.’ ’’ 

= Yes,”’ 

‘‘That means confession ?”’ 

**It does.”’ 

‘‘That may mean exposure ?”’ 

e¥es.”” 

**It may mean prison ?’’ 

“‘Yes, it may.’’ 

He then spoke of his wife and children, and Mr. 
Smith said: ‘‘Don’t you see, you don’t sin alone. 
It is not what you do for yourself only. It is what 
you do for other people, too.’’ 

He said, ‘‘See what it means for my wife and 
children? Oh, have pity!’’ 

‘Stop a minute,’’ said the evangelist. ‘‘The sin 
was not against your wife. First of all, it was 


470 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


against God, and you have got to put God in his 
right place. What are you going to do with him 
over this business? You will have to get right with 
God. You have to set everybody else aside, and 
begin with God, prison or no prison, exposure or 
no exposure, disgrace or no disgrace. God, God 
first.’’ 

The broken man trembled like a leaf in the 
storm, and then with the tears streaming down his 
face he cried, ‘‘Thou God of my mother, have 
mercy on me!’’ 

The evangelist dropt on his knees at his side 
and put his arms about him and tried to help him 
to pray. 

At last he got his feet on the Rock and said, 
‘Prison or no prison, Christ for me.’’ 

Presently he got up from his knees, and Mr. 
Smith inquired, ‘‘Have you the same employer 
you had thirty years ago?’’ 

““Yes,’’ he said. 

“*“Does he still go to business?’ 

“‘Yes, every morning.’’ 

“<Then,’’ said Gipsy Smith, ‘‘ask for an inter- 
view to-morrow morning, and I will pray for you. 
He has kept you for thirty years, and you have 
been a valuable servant. Tell him all your story— 
how you gambled, how you got into the tight fix; 


THE CHRISTIAN’S DELIVERANCE 471 


tell him everything; and then say, ‘Sir, if you can 
have pity on my wife and children, take so much 
off my salary each week; but if you cannot, then 
send me to jail. God stands for the man who 
stands for the right.’ ’’ 

The next morning, from nine to eleven o’clock, 
the time when the interview was to take place, 
Smith shut himself up to pray for that man and 
his employer. It seemed as if God was listening 
and was going to answer. At five o’clock in the 
afternoon he was looking for the man and saw him 
coming up the street looking for the number of the 
house. The evangelist could not wait, but rushed 
to the door and called him. He stumbled up the 
steps and threw his arms around the preacher’s 
neck and they stood and wept together, and when 
they got inside he said, ‘‘God is good. I told my 
story. My master listened. He wept with me, and 
when I had told him all he crossed the office floor 
and got hold of my hand—the hand that did the 
deed—and said, ‘Herbert, from to-day you are my 
friend. I will not only forgive you, but from this 
hour I will raise your salary.’ ’’ 

Now that man was saved from his sin, as every 
man must be saved, through complete and perfect 
surrender to God through Jesus Christ. I am sure 
that in this great company there must be many who 


472 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


need to hear this heart-searching message. The 
stain of sin is upon you. The fever of it is in your 
blood. This old battle which Paul tells about so 
clearly is one you know. This body of death which 
often disgusts you and humiliates you and shames 
you is nevertheless chained to your very self. My 
friend, there is only one deliverance, and that is in 
Jesus Christ our Savior. It is only of Jesus that 
it can be written. 


“He breaks the power of canceled sin, 
He sets the prisoner free.” 


And, thank God, there are many here who like Paul 
have felt that they were the chief of sinners, but, 
having been redeemed from their sins through the 
blood of Christ, are ready with joyous hearts to 
complete the hymn with the lines that follow,— 


“His blood can make the foulest clean; 
His blood availed for me.” 


THE VOICE OF THE 
GOOD SHEPHERD 


THE VOICE OF THE GOOD 
SHEPHERD 


“My sheep hear my voice.”—John X: 27. 


HE most fascinating and charming voice in all 

history is the voice of Jesus Christ. On one 
occasion a number of men, hard-headed, stern officers 
of the law, who had been sent to arrest Jesus, came 
back without him, not having even spoken to him 
concerning their mission, and they made as their 
excuse, ‘‘Never man spake like this man.’’ They 
could not withstand the charm of his voice and his 
message. He came to Jericho and looked into the 
eyes of a dishonest customs officer, and spoke to him 
with cheerful, masterful tone, ‘‘Come, Zacchzeus, 
this day I must abide at thy house.’’ And his 
voice stirred the man of greed to the depths of his 
hungry soul, and transformed him into a good man 
and generous. At his voice the raging waters were 
quieted, the wind ceased, and whitecaps faded into 
calm. His voice charmed Mary Magdalene from 
her sins, and made her immortal in her new life of 
-love and sweet devotion to her Master. His voice 
tamed the wild man of Gadara—banished the devils 


475 


476 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


from his soul—clothed him in his right mind, and 
sent him forth an obedient minister to proclaim the 
gospel of the Prince of Peace. At the sound of his 
voice the fishermen deserted their nets and their 
boats, and followed him through poverty and hard- 
ship and abuse and persecution, and counted it all 
joy to be martyrs in loyalty to his name. At the 
sound of his voice blind Bartimzus shook off his 
blindness and his beggary together and became a 
new man in Christ Jesus. Saul listened to that 
voice on the way to Damascus, and lost his bigotry 
and his hatred, became a man of prayer, and was 
transformed into Paul, the great missionary to the 
Gentiles. That voice has not lost its power or its 
charm. Charles Wesley sings: 
“He speaks, and, listening to his voice, 
New life the dead receive; 


The mournful, broken hearts rejoice; 
The humble poor believe. 


“Hear him, ye deaf; his praise, ye dumb, 
Your loosened tongues employ; 
Ye blind, behold your Savior come; 
And leap, ye lame, for joy.” 


I 


The fact that the Good Shepherd is still living 
and speaking to the souls of men is the center and 
the glory of Christianity. Often we are so ab- 


VOICE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD 477 


sorbed in worldly things, so deafened by the noise 
of the earth, so blinded by the dust and turmoil 
of the street, that we do not clearly see or hear 
him who speaks to us. If we fail to listen to him 
as the supreme voice, all our conceptions of living 
go astray. He stands in the midst of the business 
world, where we are straining for success in our 
career, and says to us: ‘‘Blest are the poor in 
spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blest 
are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted. 
Blest are the meek: for they shall inherit the 
earth. Blest are they which do hunger and thirst 
after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blest 
are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 
Blest are the pure in heart: for they shall see 
God. Blest are the peacemakers: for they shall 
be called the children of God. Blest are ye, when 
men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall 
say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my 
sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is 
your reward in heaven.’’ Are we listening to this 
voice and heeding it? Or are we so given up to 
worldliness that the beatitudes by which we live 
sound an altogether different note? Are these the 
beatitudes that stand above the desk in your office, 
or your bank, or your store, or hang in your home, 
the message of which is treasured in your heart? 


478 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


Or are they something like this?—‘‘Blest are the 
proud-spirited: for theirs is the kingdom of this 
world. Blest are the greedy, and the shrewd, and 
the cunning: for they shall get the earth. Blest 
are the bold, and the unscrupulous, and the daring: 
for they shall sit in the seats of the mighty. Blest 
are ye when all men shall speak well of you, and ye 
shall be popular and famous on every hand.’’ My 
friends, which class of these beatitudes is really 
yours? Let us search our own hearts! Let us in 
the sanctuary of God be honest with ourselves. In 
our everyday thinking and living and doing are we 
listening to the voice of the Good Shepherd? 

The late Joseph Parker, of London, once preached 
a significant sermon on ‘‘The Religion of Wake- 
fulness.’’ His theme was taken from Luke’s de- 
scription of the transfiguration of Christ, which 
tells how the disciples, overcome by the tremendous 
occasion, had fallen asleep, but on waking saw his 
glory and heard the voice from heaven. The Re- 
vised Version reads, ‘‘When they were fully awake 
they saw his glory.’’ Dr. Parker lays the emphasis 
on the necessity for Christians to be wide awake to 
the great facts of the spiritual life. This is an 
alert age. Never has there been an age so intel- 
lectually awake—awake to scientific investigations, 
awake to invention, awake to methods of gaining 


VOICE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD 479 


control over nature and the wonderful forces with 
which the storehouses of the earth are filled. But 
because of this very wakefulness on the intellectual 
and physical sides we are in danger of becoming 
sleepy and heavy and lethargic on the side of the 
Spirit, and we must confess that multitudes in the 
churches are half asleep. Perhaps none of us are 
clear of guilt in this matter: May God arouse us 
that we may be fully awake to the right things! 
Many people are busy doing the wrong things, 
or things in which there is no gift of peace or 
joy in doing. They are busy at the wrong places, 
greatly occupied with things that are not worthy 
of their occupation; they are busy here and 
there, busy enough, too busy, and they let the 
King pass by. 

On the Mount of Transfiguration, when the dis- 
ciples were fully awake, they learned infinitely 
more of Christ than they had ever known before. 
Years afterward Peter wrote, ‘‘We were eye-wit- 
nesses of his majesty.’’? And it was then that they 
heard the voice from heaven, ‘‘This is my Son, my 
chosen: Hear ye him.’’ Are there not those who 
listen to me this morning who need to awake out 
of sleep, and with clear eyes gaze anew on the 
transfigured Christ, and give intent hearing to the 
voice of the Good Shepherd? 


480 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


II 

The voice of the Good Shepherd is heard seeking 
after the lost. Christ’s story of the shepherd leay- 
ing the ninety and nine folded, and going forth 
through the darkness of the night seeking after the 
lost sheep, is realized to-day in every land. Hu- 
manity is lost until it comes under the care of the 
Good Shepherd. 

I once had a father call upon me in a city where 
I was pastor to ask my assistance in getting his son 
released from prison. And he told me the sad 
story, how the boy had gone away from home, 
where he was loved and protected, and became lost 
to his family. Without father or mother, and with- 
out sufficient maturity or wisdom to guide his 
steps, he was a failure from the start. Things 
grew worse with him. He got into bad company, 
and, more sinned against than sinning, had been 
thrust into prison. The father, who had lost track 
of him, heard of him only through his shame and 
disgrace, and as fast as the trains could carry him 
he had come to his rescue. We got him out of 
prison. The father clothed him in respectable gar- 
ments and took him home to his mother. Years 
afterward he told me that he had become entirely 
restored to goodness and to manhood. Now it is 
just like that in the spiritual realm when we turn 


—— 


VOICE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD 481 


away from God, when we reject the Christ who has 
redeemed us, and go our own way. When we do 
that spiritually, we become homeless and outcast. 
Then it is that Christ comes through the darkness 
and night of our sin, calling after the lost. Is he 
not seeking some of you here to-day? Ah, if you 
will but listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd 
you will know the caressing tenderness of his tone, 
the loving mercy of his arms, and the joy and the 
glory and the power of feeling that you are in the 
care and ownership of the Good Shepherd. 


III 


The voice of the Good Shepherd speaks in com- 
fort and assurance to his flock. Christ speaks of 
those who love him and listen to him and follow 
him as ‘‘Mine own.’’ What a wonderful thing 
it is to feel that Christ speaks that way of us. 
These words seek to give us some glimpse of the 
mystic fellowship of the Son of God with his own 
disciples, the inner knowledge of kinship, fellow- 
ship, and love. Christ in his prayer for all who 
love him says, ‘‘ And this is life eternal, that they 
should know thee the only true God, and him whom 
thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.’’ There is no 
life so brave, so noble, or so peaceful as the life 
that is consciously under such care of Jesus. 


482 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


There is an old story of Fletcher, who was the 
great preacher of his day. At Madeley Wood there 
is a cottage, still standing, which contained a great 
baker’s oven. The wife who lived in that house 
in Fletcher’s time was a devout Christian, and used 
to go to hear Fletcher every Sunday morning, much 
to the annoyance of her ungodly husband. One 
Saturday night, in a drunken mood, he vowed that, 
if she dared to leave home the next day, he would 
heat the big baking-oven for her by the time she 
returned, and put her inside. In face of such a 
threat the woman hesitated a moment; but at 
length decided that she would go to Madeley as 
usual and at all cost! But she purposed in her 
heart not to return home at once; she would remain 
at Madeley that whole day, and the next, till her 
husband’s fury had passed. 

But Fletcher’s sermon that morning changed her 
plans. The sermon was on Nebuchadnezzar, the 
burning fiery furnace, and God’s marvelous de- 
liverance of his chosen servants from the flames. 
For one hearer, at least, that sermon had special 
applicability. As this woman from Madeley Wood 
listened to it, the spirit within her was changed. 
Her timorous resolutions vanished; she prayed 
more earnestly for the conversion of her husband, 
and resolved to go back immediately, and to brave, 


VOIGE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD 483 


if need be, a sevenfold heated fire. In this spirit 
she returned home. 

As she drew near to the house, sure enough she 
saw the oven heating, and hotter than she had ever 
known it, and her heart for the moment almost 
failed her. But bravely she lifted the latch, and 
- prepared to face her infuriated husband. To her 
amazement, he did not spring to the door to seize 
her! But there, yonder, in the far corner of the 
cottage, he was upon his knees. Instead of curses 
and vile imprecations, he was actually in prayer! 
The lion had become a lamb! In one short hour, 
by the finger of God, to this brutal blasphemer had 
been given the heart of a little child! 

It may be that I speak to some of you who face 
trial and difficulty in the path of loyalty to Jesus 
Christ. If so, I want to say to you, with all the 
earnestness possible, that Jesus is able to care for 
his own, and if you will listen to the voice of the 
Good Shepherd this morning, he will speak to you 
with comfort and assurance that he is able to keep 
what you will commit to him against every day of 
adversity and trial. 


IV 


The voice of the Good Shepherd always leads the 
Christian toward the highest power and the noblest 
career. All who have studied the career of Moody, 


484 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


the greatest evangelist of the last generation, have 
noted how slowly he came to his remarkable power. 
His first visit to England, in 1867, attracted almost 
no attention whatever. But it was on that visit 
that Moody heard these words: ‘‘The world has 
yet to see what God will do with, and for, and 
through, and in, and by the man who is fully and. 
wholly consecrated to him.’’ On his return to 
America from that visit he came under the infiu- 
ence of Henry Moorehouse, who preached for 
Moody several days in Chicago; and it was through 
the preaching of Henry Moorehouse that Moody 
reversed the order of his preaching: He discovered, 
as tho it were an entirely new discovery, that God 
is love; he saw that the great appeal to the human 
heart is not the threatening of the law, but the 
love of God, and after listening to Henry Moore- 
house night after night, that became the great pre- 
dominant note, that God loves men. 

From that day Moody came into closer touch 
with Christ. He saw with clearer eyes, and the 
voice of the Good Shepherd led him onward. In 
1871 his church was burned to the ground in 
Chicago. He started out to try to get money for 
a new church. He tells the story of what hap- 
pened: ‘‘My heart was not in the begging. I 
could not appeal. I was crying all the time that 


VOICE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD 485 


God would fill me with his Spirit. Well, one day 
in the city of New York—oh, what a day! I can- 
not describe it, I seldom refer to it. It is almost 
too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an ex- 
perience of which he never spoke for fourteen 
years. I can only say that God revealed himself 
to me, and I had such an experience of his love that 
I had to ask him to stay his hand. I went to preach- 
ing again. The sermons were not different. I did 
not present any new truths, yet hundreds were con- 
verted. I would not now be placed back where I 
was before that blest experience if you should 
give me all the world.’”’ And from that day on 
Moody was the greatest personal religious factor 
in the world while he lived. What was the secret? 
He had given unreserved hearing and obedience to 
the voice of the Good Shepherd. My friends, my 
heart longs that such divine hungering and thirst- 
ing after righteousness may possess our souls to- 
day that we shall be filled with that spirit of perfect 
obedience to Christ. Is it not true that this is our 
great need? The fields are white for the harvest 
all about us. Multitudes of men and women 
brought up in Christian homes, taught in Christian 
Sunday-schools, are in this great city, wandering 
from God, going farther and farther into sin, while 
we do little to gather them for our Lord. What we 


486 SERMONS WHICH HAVE WON SOULS 


need above everything to do this great work is a 
closer fellowship with Christ, a keener, more sensi- 
tive ear to hear his voice, and a heart that will 
yield in complete surrender to do his bidding in 
seeking and saving the lost. 

We must not forget to give a moment’s thought 
to the great goal toward which the Good Shepherd 
is seeking to lead all his flock. Christ says, “‘My 
sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they 
follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and 
they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch 
them out of my hand.’’ That makes not only the 
present, but the future, safe and glorious. 


“J cannot see the distant shady trail 

That winds among the gnarléd oaks and ferns; 
And yet I know that, on beyond the blue, 

For me a quenchless love-light burns. 


“And so I climb and feast among the flowers, 
And at the midnoon dream beneath the pine; 
While, at the flaming sundown red, I sip 
My own eve star’s ambrosial wine. 


“And when at last I mount the far-off crag, 
I know that, on the happy, wind-blown crest, 
The wished-for hand shall flash the long-sought light, 
And in the splendor I shall rest.” 


THE END. 


Books BY 


DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS 


Christ and His Friends 


If a tree is to be judged by its fruits, these sermons by the former 
pastor of perhaps the largest church in Methodism are to be adjudged 
a success. One of the most remarked revivals attended their de- 
livery, resulting in hundreds of conversions. The volume contains 
the entire series of 31 sermons, the texts for all of them being taken 
from St. John’s Gospel, Like all successful revival discourses, these 
are simple, direct, devoid of rhetorical artifice, abounding in illus- 
trations and incidents, and glowing with spiritual fervor. Another 
characteristic is their brevity, their delivery taking, we judge, an 
average of 20 minutes each. They are in the very first class of such 
discourses. Free from extravagance and fantasticism, in perfect 
good taste, dwelling upon the essentials of religious faith, their 
power has not been lost in transference to the printed page, and 
as a book of general devotional reading, the collection is to be highly 
commended. 


z2mo, Cloth, 390 pp. Price, $1.75, post-paid. 


Charles L. Goodell, D.D., says: “In ‘Christ and His Friends,’ Dr. 
Banks has made every preacher his debtor. It is an artistic volume 
from the standpoint of the printer, but its real beauties are within. 
The preacher is in actual battle. There are no flourishes, but only 
the straight, hard thrust of the man of God who knows his weapon, and 
plies the Sword of the Spirit right well. It is filled with a wealth of 
illustrations, fresh from actual experience. The book is a revelation 
of the heart of Jesus, by Great-heart himself. If jany preacher aspires 
to be a soul-winner let him study these sermons.’ 


The Fisherman and His Friends 


A _ Companion Volume to “Christ and His Friends,” consisting 
of Thirty-one Stirring Revival Discourses, full of Stimulus and 
Suggestions for Ministers, Bible-class Teachers, and all Christian 
Workers and Others who Desire to become Proficient in the Supreme 
Capacity of Winning Souls to Christ. They furnish a rich store of 
fresh spiritual inspiration, their subjects being strong, stimulating, 
and novel in treatment, without being sensational or elaborate. 
They were originally preached by the author in a successful series 
of revival meetings, which resulted in many conversions. 


z2mo, Cloth, 365 pp. Price $2.75, post-paid. 


Bishop John F. Hurst: “Tt is a most valuable addition to our de- 
votional literature.” 

New York Independent: “This volume fairly thrills and rocks with 
the force injected into its utterance.’ 


FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Pubs. 
354-360 Fourth Avenue - New York 


Books by DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS—Continued 


Paul and His Friends 


Thirty-one eloquent and vigorous revival sermons, richly freighted 
with suggestive and illustrative material for all classes of Christian 
workers. They unfold many fresh and striking facts relative to the 
life of Paul. 


z2mo, Cloth, 355 pp. Price $1.75, post-paid. 


Reo. Dr. Robert McIntyre: “Dr. Banks can make that rarest thing, 
a readable sermon. His sermons have energy,  fncenity felicity of 
illustration, all drenched in love, and are crowned with that nameless 
charm, coveted by all our guild, which makes them lie upon the printed 
page level to the apprehension of the average intellect.” 


‘fohn and His Friends 


Thirty-three clear, straight, and forceful revival sermons, texts 
from the Gospel of John. They are of the same general character 
and excellence as the sermons contained in the three preceding 
volumes of this series. 


z2mo, Cloth, 297 pp. Price $1.75, post-paid. 
Outlook, New York: ‘While these sermons are brief, they are full of 


sweetness and light, and pointed to the heart with apt illustration in 
abundance from human experience of manifold kinds.” 


David and His Friends 


This book contains thirty-one forceful revival sermons similar in 
general character to those in the preceding volumes of the “Friends” 
series. Texts from Samuel and the Psalms. 


r2mo, Cloth, 320 pp. Price $1.75, post-paid. 


The Watchman, Boston: ‘The sermons are marked by the character- 
istics conspicuous in previous volumes, and which have commanded 
great popular favor.” 


Toronto Globe: “The series was prepared for a spent course of 
revival meetings held early in the present year, and therefore it is 
written in a fervid and colloquial style for effective delivery, and 
abounds with homely illustration and emotional appeal.” 

The Christian Intelligencer: ‘They are original and practical. The 
volume will make an excellent present to an unsaved friend.” 

The Hartford Courant: “These are the sort of sermons to be read 
at home, or even by a lay reader in the absence of the clergyman, for 
they are sufficiently graphic to dispense with the personal exponent.” 


“<1 


Books by DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS—Continued 


The Sinner and His Friends 


Dr. Banks put the best efforts of his mature years into this volume 
and gives us a stirring, wide-awake, up-and-doing EVANGELISTIC 
series of sermons that burn with fire and glow with sympathy. His 
strong personality finds here the most fitting theme in which to show 
a great love for the sinner, an abhorrence of sin and a true friendship 
for all who will strive once more for a life of honor and steadfastness. 
Dr. Banks saw much of the unfortunate side of those who have 
trodden the downward way. He had a wide experience in Cleveland, 
in Brooklyn, in New York and in Denver. He knew how to deal 
tenderly and tactfully with the erring ones and win them back to 
uprightness. 

z2mo, Cloth, 359 pp. Price $1.75, post-paid. 


Christian Endeavor World, Boston, Mass.: “Any preacher would 
find the book suggestive of methods of reaching hearts, and any layman 
would find in the book much material for uplifting thought.” 


Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.: “Dr. Banks is a preacher who does 
not mince words when attacking evil, he strikes straight from the 
shoulder and his blows tell. His sermons are models of epigrammatic 
utterance and evangelical grace.” 


The Winds of God 


A series of vigorous, soul-stirring sermons built upon the more 
unusual texts, illustrated aptly with anecdotes and poetry, and 
expressed in simple and dignified language that can not fail to appeal 
strongly to the best in man. 


Into this volume, containing probably the best of his pulpit utter- 
ances, Dr. Banks has poured all that his ripe experience and expand- 
ing vision could furnish. The sermons are Biblical to a degree and 
glow with evangelistic fervor. An eloquent tribute to Abraham 
Lincoln is included as one of the chapters, others dealing with such 
topics as ““The Growing Soul,” ““The Banishment of Anxiety,” “The 
Durable Satisfactions of Life,” ““A Beautiful Old Age,” “The Need 
of a Red-Blooded Christianity,” etc. 


z2mo, Cloth, 473 pp. Price $1.75, post-paid. 


Brooklyn Eagle, Brooklyn, New York: ‘‘Out of all the material used 
there emerges a rare insight of God and Christ. It is such an incentive 
to a stronger Christian fervor that no one can carefully read and reread 
these sermons without unconsciously, like Moses, receiving more of the 
glow of God.” '. 

New York Herald, New York: “These ES are written with that 
tender beauty which seems to reflect a beautiful soul and are per- 
meated with a sincere idealism that the reader is likely to find con- 


tagious.” 


Books by DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS—Continued 


Spurgeon’s Illustrative Anecdotes 


The name of Charles H. Spurgeon stands before the whole world 
as the highest since the names of Wesley and Whitefield as a success- 
ful preacher of the several gospels in such a way as to win men to 
Christ. His individual sermons are still selling by hundred thousands 
and men are still being converted to Christ in all parts of the world 
through the reading of his printed words. It can not help but be of 
interest to the preacher who desires to be a soul winner to become 
acquainted with the anecdotes and illustrations used by this man 
who was so marvelously blessed of God in the salvation of souls. In 
this book Dr. Banks gathered Spurgeon’s stories. Some of them 
were repeated again and again in his volumes of sermons and show 
the value which he places on them and the success with which he 
used them. 

Dr. Banks, himself a prolific and highly successful user of apt and 
forceful illustrations, realized their value in producing telling effects 
upon his listeners and readers, and believes that the use of Spurgeon’s 
illustrative anecdotes by present-day clergymen will help to add a 
determining power to their sermons. 


z2mo, Cloth, 332 pp. Price, $2.75, post-paid. 


Twentieth Century Knighthood 


Helpful addresses to young men in which examples of ancient 
chivalry are used to illustrate modern conditions. A companion 
volume to ““The Christian Gentleman” and “My Young Man.” 


r2mo, Cloth, 142 pp. Price $1.00, post-paid. 


The Christian Gentleman 


A volume of original and practical addresses to young men. The 
addresses were originally delivered to large and enthusiastic audi- 
ences of men, in Cleveland, at the Young Men’s Christian Associa- 
tion Hall. 

z2mo, Cloth. Price $1.00, post-paid. 


My Young Man 


Practical and straightforward talks to young men. They are 
devoted to the consideration of the young man in his relationships 
as a son, a brother, a member of society, a lover, a husband, a citizen, 

-. a young man and his money, and the young man as himself. 


r2mo, Cloth. Price $1.00, post-paid. 


Books by DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS—Continued 


The Problems of Youth 


A book made up of vigorous, frank, and sensible talks to young 
men and women. It contains a wealth of advice which will benefit 
them physically, mentally, and morally. 


Cloth. Price $7.75, post-paid. 


The Saloon-Keeper’s Ledger 


The business and financial side of the drink question. 
z2mo, Cloth. Price $2.00, post-paid. 


The Christian Herald, Detroit: ‘The discourses are the masterpieces 
of an papert, abounding in apt illustrations and invincible logic, spark- 
ling with anecdotes, and scintillating with unanswerable facts.” 


Sermon Stories for Boys and Girls 


Short stories of great interest, with which are interwoven lessons 
of practical helpfulness for young minds, 


z2mo, Cloth. Illustrated. Price $1.25, post-paid. 


Seven Times Around Ffericho 


Seven strong and stirring temperance discourses, in which deep 
enthusiasm is combined with rational reasoning—a refreshing change 
from the conventional temperance arguments. Pathetic incidents 
and stories are made to carry most convincingly their vital signi- 
ficance to the subjects discussed. They treat in broad manner 
various features of the question. 


z2mo, Cloth. Price $2.00, post-paid. 


Ammunition for Final Drive on Booze 


Here is one of the most valuable books ever offered to the men 
and women who are fighting John Barleycorn. It contains a wealth 
of valuable material for use in conversation, platform speaking, 
writing, etc., to drive home prohibition arguments. 

This is a storehouse of anti-saloon arguments which are presented 
in new and irresistible ways. Quotations, anecdotes, facts, and 


figures of the greatest value, written in snappy and convincing style, 
fill this book. 


z2mo, Cloth, goo pp. Price $7.75, post-paid. 


Books by DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS—Continued 


Sermons Which Have Won Souls 


In this book Dr. Banks has incorporated his best sermons, which 
have been so wonderfully successful in saving souls. In the preface 
he gives us an insight into the methods by which he tactfully and 
earnestly follows up each inquirer in his home, and the plans by 
watch. park ones are drawn to and interested in active church work 
and life. 

z2mo, Cloth. Price $2.75, post-paid. 


The World’s Childhood 


A series of Sunday evening sermons from themes drawn from the 
first three chapters of Genesis. Dr. Banks has written this volume 
in a most helpful way. These sermons have borne abundant fruit, 
and drawn pastor and people together. There is a far greater con- 
gregation that they may now reach in book form, for his writings 
have gone to the ends of the earth. Coming from one who has had 
such a varied ministry in several pastorates and among people of 
widely different surroundings, tastes, and conduct, it is safe to say 
that they embody the ripest experience he has yet put into book form. 


z2mo, Cloth. Price $1.75, post-paid. 


Buffalo Express: “They are marked by the same spirit of modernity 
and application to present-day conditions that have won for Dr. 
Banks’ many volumes a wide circle of readers.” 


cAnecdotes and —Morals 


Five hundred and fifty-nine attractive and forceful lessons which 
may be profitably utilized by the public speaker to freshly illustrate 
divine truth. They are composed of incidents of vital interest, 
which have happened throughout the world. d : 


f 
z2mo, Cloth, 463 pp. Price $1.75, post-paid. 


Poetry and Morals 


Clear, straight, and forceful lessons emphasized by familiar 
passages of prose and poetry. The author has arranged several 
hundred simple truths in paragraphs appropriately headed in full- 
face type. Thetruths areexplained ina few terse sentences, and then 
a verse, entire poem, or prose selection having direct bearing on each 
truth is added, forming a perfect storehouse of suggestive material 
for the preacher and writer. A companion volume to “Anecdotes 
and Morals.” 


z2mo, Cloth, 399 pp. Price $1.75, post-paid. 


Books by DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS—Continued 


cA Year's Prayer-Meeting Talks 


Fifty-two suggestive and inspiring talks for prayer-meetings. 
Helpful material is provided for a whole year’s weekly meetings. 
The talks have been already used by Dr. Banks in a most successful 
series of services. The author’s well-known skill in presenting the 
old trvths in bright and striking ways is evidenced in these interesting 
‘talks. The book is designed to be a right-hand aid for preachers 
and religious workers. 


z2mo, Cloth. Price $1.25, post-paid. 


On the Trail of Moses 


Thirty-one revival sermons revealing a wealth of suggestions and 
illustrations. 
z2mo, Cloth, Price $1.75, post-paid. 

Christian Index: “Dr. Banks has great facility in expressing themes 
that are pertinent to the lives people actually live, and his command of 
effective illustration is exceptional,” 

Lutheran Observer, Philadelphia: ‘‘One wonders at the variety of 
practical subjects all bearing on the every-day problems and needs of 
present-day life that he finds in the story of the great law-giver. The 
preacher will find in them a rich mine of illustrated material of a sort 
that really illumines.” p 


The Unexpected Christ 


A series of thirty evangelistic sermons written in Dr. Banks’ 
characteristic style. 


z2mo, Cloth, 328 pp. Price $1.75, post-paid. 


Bishop W. F. Mallalieun, D.D., LL.D.: “These sermons abound in 
hints, suggestions, and illustrations that will be helpful to the preacher.” 


Hero Tales from Sacred Story 


The Romantic Stories of Bible Characters Retold in Graphic 
Style, with Modern Parallels and Striking Applications. Richly 
illustrated with 19 full-page, half-tone illustrations from famous 
paintings. 

z2mo, Cloth, 279 pp. Price $1.75, post-paid. 


Rev, David Gregg, D. D.: “This work is Dr. Banks’ masterpiece.” 


Windows for Sermons 


_A study of the art of sermonic illustration with 400 fresh illustra- 
tions suited for sermons and reform addresses. 


z2mo, Cloth, 440 pp. Price $7.75, post-paid. 


By CHARLES L. GOODELL, D. D. 


Pathways to the Best 


Dr. Goodell’s Only Book of Sermons 


In this volume Dr. Goodell has brought together the best fruits 
of many years of study and practical work as one of the foremost 
ministers of the Methodist Church. His aim has been to present 
what he believes to be the most wholesome and uplifting aspects of 
the Christian faith. 

12mo, Cloth, 344 pp. Price $1.50; post-paid, $1.62. 
Zion’s Herald, Boston: *‘Dr. Goodell stands, as he has for many years, 
without a rival as a successful and fruit-bearing pastor. He speaks 
the truth, which he believes, which he has tested, and which he incar- 


nates as a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is a master in soul- 
winning.” 


By GEORGE HOLLEY GILBERT, Ph.D., D.D. 
The Bible and Universal Peace 


Considers the fact of war in Biblical history, and how Biblical 
writers regarded this fact; studies the elements of peace in prophetic 
sacred writings; traces the influence of the Bible on the sentiment 
and institutions of peace; illustrates the modern appeal to the Bible 


in support of war; and discusses the relation of Jesus to the Modern 
Peace Movement. 
z2mo, Cloth, 229 pp. Price, $1.00 net; post-paid, $7.12. 
Rev. Philip S. Moxom D. D.: “There is no other book which so care- 
fully and so fully sets forth the teaching of the Bible on its various 
planes from the Patriarchal age to the time of Jesus, concerning War.” 


By REV. CHARLES H. PRIDGEON, M. A. 
President and Founder of the Pittsburgh Bible Institute 


Is Hell Eternal or Will God’s Plan Fail? 


Such is the arresting title of a remarkable new book which deals 
with this momentous question from an orthodox standpoint and in 
a constructive manner designed to aid the thoughtful man or woman 
who has had difficulty with the doctrine of endless punishment as 
usually taught. 

The author earnestly believes that the new light he has been able 
to shed upon the conception of time and eternity, by an exhaustive 
study and analysis of all the scriptural texts relating to penalties for 
sin, will accomplish for Biblical problems all that Einstein’s theory of 
relativity promises to do for natural science. 

His interpretation of this great mass of testimony is original and 
satisfying, and is full of hope for the sinner who turns to repentance. 
To preachers, Bible students, evangelists, and Sunday-school 
teachers this volume will prove a sure source of inspiration and 
enlightenment. 

r2mo, Cloth, 333 pp. Price $1.75, net; post-paid, $1.87. 

New York Tribune: ‘‘The author draws a careful distinction between 
time and eternity. He believes that while wickedness must incur 
stern punishment, the conception of eternal torment is inconsistent 
with the purpose of an all-wise and all-loving Deity.” 


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